sifter's review
3.0
The central idea - that the 60s were not a radical disruption of what came before, but much more of a continuation - is interesting and well argued. It’s also interesting to see political action so well situated with cultural events (and vice versa). But despite an interest in reframing history, this extends more to the narrative than the characters or the attitudes: it still mostly focusses on people you’ve heard about before (in a way the entire book is viewed through the prism of Macmillan) and it doesn’t work hard enough to expand the scope of what’s covered. There are some nods to a more social history based approach but it’s still basically the “great man” theory. It’s not that comfortable with a wider vision of history, and tilts into misogyny when talking about Christine Keeler. For all the author’s dislike of CND and “folkies” as inauthentic middle class tourists, a more authentic panoply of voices is lacking from the book as a whole that claims to be a history of a whole country and a whole age.
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