THE RISE AND FALL OF THE BRITISH NATION

A TWENTIETH CENTURY HISTORY

DAVID EDGERTON Allen Lane, 682pp, £30, Oldie price £18.86 inc p&p

Edgerton is ‘just the man to hold your hand on a journey through the national balance sheet,’ wrote David Goodhart in the Evening Standard. ‘As that implies, this is not always an easy read, yet it is far from dry. This is partly because he takes on so many received ideas. But also because he has an eye for the arresting detail: in 1934 the Burton’s clothing factory canteen in Leeds could hold 8,000 workers in one sitting and there were 3.3 million pet budgerigars in 1965 – down to just a million in 2000.’ Christopher de Bellaigue, in his

Guardian review, said that it is ‘for the most part a fierce and dazzling account of 20th-century Britain from the perspective of a historian of science and industry… Edgerton spends the best part of 500 pages arguing that things haven’t been all that bad. Then suddenly, like a cyclist defeated by the final, brutal ascent, he collapses in a heap of cynicism and despair [over Brexit].’ In parts it is ‘tough to read’, wrote Iain Martin in the Times, recommending that it is ‘best digested in manageable chunks and returned to for further study. Still, it is stimulating and bracing. The author sets out to make us think differently about our past. With this reader he succeeded.’