The early sixties in Britain told as only David Kynaston ('the most entertaining historian alive' Spectator) can: running from 1962 to 1965, A Northern Wind is the anticipated next volume in Kynaston’s landmark ‘Tales of a New Jerusalem’ series
David Kynaston is a professional historian and author. He has written a four-volume history of the City of London as well as a history of the Bank of England. His continuing history of post-war Britain, 'Tales of a New Jerusalem', has so far comprised Austerity Britain, Family Britain, Modernity Britain and On the Cusp. His most recent three books have been Arlott, Swanton and the Soul of English Cricket (with Stephen Fay); Engines of Privilege: Britain’s Private School Problem (with Francis Green); and Shots in the Dark: A Diary of Saturday Dreams and Strange Times.
From Daleks and dingy tower blocks to nuclear threats, this
addictively readable book charts dizzying change . . . To readers
addicted to David Kynaston’s mighty chronicle of Britain’s history
since 1945, this collage, sometimes moving, often comic, always
fascinating, will seem reassuringly familiar. Once again he weaves
diaries, newspapers, TV listings and sports fixtures into a vast,
multi-coloured tapestry, depicting almost every conceivable aspect
of our national life . . . As always in Kynaston’s series, dizzying
change jostles with profound continuity . . . His tireless research
turns up plenty of gems . . . It's the perfect note, democratic and
hopeful, on which to end the latest instalment of this terrific
series. I can't wait for the next
*Sunday Times*
With a beady but compassionate eye, Kynaston ranges over public
records and private diaries, political speeches and TV interviews,
in conjuring this fresco of the panoramic and the intimate . . .
Much of it chimes weirdly with our present moment . . . It is
characteristic of Kynaston to present such opposing views and
somehow to harmonise them. He is the most humane and even-handed
chronicler of our time, and the one best qualified to carry this
mightily compelling national story onwards
*Observer*
As in the earlier volumes of this vivid history of postwar Britain,
Kynaston’s primary aim is to document “a ceaseless pageant as, in
all its daily variousness, it moves through time”. This he achieves
with a breathtaking array of treasures: diaries, provincial
newspapers, political speeches, films and novels are woven together
to provide a kaleidoscope of contrasting perspectives, defying any
attempt to create a neat story of progress or nationhood . . . This
is a richly evocative, thought-provoking and, above all,
compassionate study of those who lived through the
much-mythologised 1960s. We can only hope that when historians
write about our own times, they will extend the same generosity of
spirit
*TLS*
The latest volume in a magisterial series on post-war Britain
reveals a nation poised for change . . . Moves continuously and
skilfully between moments of high politics and the daily rumble of
normal people’s lives … Extraordinarily atmospheric, capturing more
than anything a sense of what this moment in the early 1960s might
have felt like to live through . . . Kynaston’s assessment is clear
and erudite . . . What Kynaston is doing with this book and the
Tales of a New Jerusalem series more widely is providing a
chronicle from the bottom up of contemporary British history
*Financial Times*
Here is an intricate tapestry that conveys the essence of the time
. . . A Northern Wind is not a superficial exercise in heritage
history, an attempt to dress up the past . . . It analyses
complexities, teases out nuances and gauges the currents of
continuity and change, many of which still flow today
*Literary Review*
A collage of fragments interlaced with penetrating analysis, this
book is always humane, often hilarious, devoid of dogma and never
condescending
*New Statesman*
Let us be grateful for the collage of little pictures that Kynaston
gives us, surely the most hyperreal of historical accounts of this
period we will ever have. And let us hope for more volumes soon
*History Today*
PRAISE FOR 'Tales of a New Jerusalem' : Volumes full of treasure,
serious history with a human face
*Hilary Mantel*
No other writer evokes Britain's past so well
*New Statesman*
Kynaston has created a living, breathing, talking, singing,
dancing, grumbling and complaining portrait of the British . . .
Groundbreaking
*Literary Review*
Few historians have the power to make you feel you actually inhabit
the times they are writing about. Kynaston does
*Sunday Times*
One of the most remarkable literary projects of this century
*Nick Hornby*
A living, breathing, talking, singing, dancing, grumbling and
complaining portrait of the British . . . Groundbreaking
*Literary Review*
The real strength of the book, and the series, is Kynaston’s focus
on the voices from below. Drawing on a daunting array of diaries,
letters and cultural ephemera ranging from the most pop to the
highest brow, the book frames history through the ordinary person’s
experience
*BBC History Magazine, 2023 Books of the Year*
[A] readable and richly detailed social history of the post-war
period: it catalogues under two-and-a-half years in which, it
seemed, the whole country changed . . . For all its documentary
richness, the book reminds us – indeed warns us – how so much can
change so quickly’
*Telegraph, The Best History Books of 2023*
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