Little Englanders
Britain in the Edwardian Era
Published on 22. February 2024
978-1-80081-532-2 (ISBN)
Description
A TIMES SUMMER READ FOR 2025
'For sheer entertainment, this rollicking account of Britain before the Great War is hard to beat, brimming as it is with swindlers, murderers and charlatans, imperialist fantasies and saucy innuendos' 'History Books of the Year', The Times
'The very best sort of panoramic portrait' David Kynaston
When 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.
'For sheer entertainment, this rollicking account of Britain before the Great War is hard to beat, brimming as it is with swindlers, murderers and charlatans, imperialist fantasies and saucy innuendos' 'History Books of the Year', The Times
'The very best sort of panoramic portrait' David Kynaston
When 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 / Votes
There have been plenty of books on the Edwardians before, but never one as richly enjoyable as this -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times * For sheer entertainment, this rollicking account of Britain before the Great War is hard to beat, brimming as it is with swindlers, murderers and charlatans, imperialist fantasies and saucy innuendos. The scope is vast, covering everything from the suffragettes to The Wind in the Willows, and Alwyn Turner proves a wonderfully enthusiastic narrator -- 'History Books of the Year' * The Times * [Turner is] always entertainingly brilliant -- Marina Hyde * Guardian * Amusing and engaging ... [a] portrait of a poignant interlude in British history -- Andrew Martin * Observer * A page-turner of a popular history of the period, crammed with humour and striking quotes -- Andrew Marr * New Statesman * 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 * Well written, often fascinating -- Simon Heffer * Spectator * Alwyn Turner has achieved the remarkable feat of shedding new light on the Edwardian era ... his research is impressive and [Little Englanders] is consistently stimulating * Literary Review * A welcome contribution to an oft-overlooked period ... Turner smashes the mythologies of the age ... a remarkable yet accessible read ... what Turner does so well is capture the cultural landscape, treating us to the leisure, the stories, the songs and the movies of the era ... Ultimately, Turner paints a vivid picture of a tempestuous age: an emerging modernity Britain battling for stability and order * BBC History Magazine * 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 Jenkins The very best sort of panoramic portrait, full of vivid characters, emblematic anecdotes and telling social detail, all underpinned by penetrating historical judgement. The Edwardians have fascinated readers for more than a century, yet even those who think they know the period will find much to discover and savour in Alwyn Turner's sometimes unsettling but always life-enhancing pages -- David Kynaston, author * A Northern Wind * Britain's most electrifying contemporary social historian conjures the forgotten country of more than a century ago ... to reveal a strikingly foreign world which nonetheless holds up a dusty mirror to our own. A magnificent triumph over cultural amnesia, brimming with insight and impossible to put down. Fiercely recommended -- Alan Moore Every page grips and delights as Alwyn Turner presents a deeply researched yet gorgeously entertaining double vision of something now almost fantastical - a United Kingdom in full Imperial glory - yet unnervingly familiar -- James Hawes, author * The Shortest History of England * Alwyn Turner is a wonderful raconteur of historical eras. He has a sense for character, and story, and bizarre anecdote, that makes an epoch come alive and makes you feel, at times, that you're living in Edwardian times, albeit with much better food. This is history written from below, and above, and all milieus in between -- Simon Kuper, author * Chums * Alwyn has the happy knack of making history slip down like a pint of Best. The facts and references and context are all there, yet the whole thing flows like an ideal conversation between two or three well informed friends, teasing out the truth from the half remembered myths of the recent past -- Simon Evans There is something fascinating and fleeting about the Edwardian era. It is both an ending and a beginning. Little Englanders captures the period perfectly, in all its confidence and uncertainty -- Adrian Tinniswood, author * Noble Ambitions: The Fall and Rise of the Post-War Country House * An interesting social history of a time that proved much more significant than simply a transition between the reign of Victoria and what we now refer to as Modernity * Bookmunch * A wonderful and rollicking account of the popular culture of Edwardian Britain, based on a massive amount of reading of the popular literature of the period. It is as entertaining as it is perceptive -- Vernon Bogdanor, Professor of Government, Kings College London, and author * The Strange Survival of Liberal Britain * How the Edwardians shaped 20th century Britain ... a readable new account * Scottish Legal News * Praise for Alwyn Turner -- : Hugely engaging ... Turner's genius lies in finding the odd little stories that get under the nation's skin and reveal what people were really thinking ... He writes with a tremendous sense of fun. -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times * Alwyn Turner is a master of the telling detail ... ravenously inquisitive, darkly comical and coolly undeceived -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday * Turner writes with great fluidity, his tone underpinned by a prevailing sense of irony: even the footnotes are enjoyable * TLS * Turner's seductive blend of political analysis, social reportage and cultural immersion puts him wonderfully at ease with his readers -- David KynastonMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Reflowable
Illustrations
chapter opening b/w images
ISBN-13
978-1-80081-532-2 (9781800815322)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
01/2025
Profile Books Ltd
€15.50
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Book
02/2024
Profile Books Ltd
€50.95
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Person
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'.
