Little Englanders: Britain in the Edwardian Era

(Paperback, Main)

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'The very best sort of panoramic portrait' David Kynaston'The Edwardians have long been the lost decade of British history, yet they are that history at its climax. Alwyn Turner sets the record straight, bringing its characters, strains and stresses brilliantly to life' Simon JenkinsWhen Queen Victoria died in 1901 it was the end of an era. Many later remembered the era that followed as the long afternoon of an empire where the sun never set. Yet the Edwardians knew the country was in a state of flux; the seismic change that they felt would transform modern Britain forever.In Little Englanders, Alwyn Turner reconsiders the Edwardian era as a time of profound social change, bringing their history alive through music halls and male beauty contests, the 1908 Summer Olympics and the real Peaky Blinders. In this colourful, detailed and hugely entertaining social history, Turner shows that, though the golden Victorian age was in the past, the birth of modern Britain was only just beginning.

Reviews

'There have been plenty of books on the Edwardians before, but never one as richly enjoyable as this' - Dominic Sandbrook

'Amusing and engaging ... [a] portrait of a poignant interlude in British history' - Andrew Martin

'A page-turner of a popular history of the period, crammed with humour and striking quotes' - Andrew Marr

'Little Englanders hums and thrums to the texture and tone of everyday Edwardian life' - Daily Mail

'Engrossing ... Alwyn Turner is an assured guide to this brief but dramatic era' - Daily Telegraph

Author Bio

Alwyn Turner is best known for his trilogy of books about Britain in the last decades of the 20th century: Crisis What Crisis (2008), Rejoice! Rejoice! (2010) and A Classless Society (2013). His last book, All in it Together: England in the Early 21st Century was a Sunday Times 'Book of the Year'.