Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 27
 An excellent, lively and engaging read... August 24, 2010
C. Ball (Northampton, UK)
I really enjoyed this book, more than I expected to. Marr is an excellent writer, very engaging and readable without being condescending, which isn't always the easiest balance to achieve in writing history.
This isn't a comprehensive history of the fifty-odd years between the death of Queen Victoria and the end of the Second World War, nor does it pretend to be. It's more a case of charting just how much Britain changed in such a short span, less than one lifetime, and how much of that change and that process reverberates with us still. Britain went from being an imperial power with an Empire, the most powerful nation on earth, to a nation bankrupted by war, shedding its empire and moving into a new role as a democracy, indebted to and to a large extent subservient to one of its old colonies.
As I said, this isn't a comprehensive history; it's more of a thematic one, looking at issues such as culture, literacy, the attitudes towards class, social mobility, shopping and commercial culture. But it's well-worth reading, if only because it sheds so much light on how we became the country we are today.
History of Britain, Marr August 19, 2010
Mr. David J. Barton
Bought as a present. Not enough pictures for the recipient!
I look forward to borrowing it.
 An entertaining and enthusiastic view of British History June 20, 2010
Andrew Dalby (oxford)
After seeing parts of his A History of Modern Britain I was interested to see how Marr would treat the earlier part of the 20th Century from the end of the Victorian Era to V.E. Day. The answer is with a great success. It is not often that history books are so enjoyable. Marr's voice permeates his writing and you can feel him reading it to you with his usual characteristic gusto. His focus is on the people, not only the big people although Churchill has a big part to play as he was such a large figure both in the Liberal governments and then as a war leader. Lloyd-George also looms large but there are also stories of the music hall greats and most importantly how British opinion and society changed.
It is the story of how we went from a jingoist Empire to a much more pacifist and less confident more introspective Britain. He tells how we moved towards the left but that we still keep our centre, that Britain is not a place of extremes but of the middle-ground. It is the story of a more equal society but also one with great weaknesses that it often fails to admit. His discussion of the economic crisis and the failure of British industry to innovate and modernise except when driven by war is as topical today as it was nearly a century ago. We do not learn from history because it never quite repeats itself but this shows what there is to be proud about Britain's past while also not being afraid to show the failures and the weaknesses.
Don't take it too seriously and you'll enjoy it April 1, 2010
John Smith (UK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It was interesting to see other reviews call this "more interesting than dry history lessons". As an A level history student, I have to disagree with that view, because history is the best subject in the world, but it has a good point.
This book is, like the TV series, broken down into exciting and intriguing little episodes of the first half of the 20th century. Although the book lacks real detail and fluency, the personal nature of the tiny chapters makes them more 'real' and interesting. The big downside for me was Marr's sweeping authoritative generalisations, which are so common you get used to them. There is, to this reader, a lot of simplification. But if you accept that this is a casual story being told by a journalist and not a historian, you can get into it. As well as all the key British events of the early 20th century which (if you're anything like me!) you feel you should know about, the book also has some more unusual tales, such as that of the mad Mitford sisters. There were a few bits on literature and architecture which I skipped, but the majority of the book was very enjoyable. In particular, the fascinating personalities of David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill came across more than they would have done if they were mere characters in a proper history book.
Who better than a senior BBC journalist ... March 22, 2010
P. M. Fernandez (London)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
... to write this sort of book?
For at least two reasons. Firstly, as a journalist, Marr is used to telling a story. He engages his readers with everything, from slices of domestic life to high politics - throughout the whole book, the facts matter - not simply as abstract pieces of information to be absorbed, but as events which shaped the lives of individuals.
Secondly, as a BBC journalist, Marr is used to careful impartiality. There are no heroes here - or rather, there are heroes, but they are human: we don't have any hagiography. And there are, in a sense, no villains. For example, on the matter of appeasement, Marr avoids the simplistic approach of blaming the ten or so politicians who steered the policy, and points to the fact that people in their millions were crying out for their leaders to avoid war.
Too often, the writers of disciplines we call "the arts" have their own axe to grind, their own agenda to put forward. So we have feminist, gay, black, social evolutionist accounts of history. What we don't see enough of is this kind of general account, which looks at history "in the round". There are other such accounts - I enjoyed Great Tales from English History: the Battle of the Boyne to DNA, 1690-1953: Battle of the Boyne to DNA v. 3, for example, by Robert Lacey, although these were perhaps pitched at a slightly younger readership (Marr has slightly more salacious detail about mistresses, for example). But if you are looking for a single volume overview of the key issues that shaped the United Kingdom in these crucial years from 1900-1945, you could do much worse than start here.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 27
|
![The Making Of Modern Britain [DVD]](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B002KSA48S.01._AA75_PU_PU-5_.jpg)
