Books we like ... and books we're not too fussed about
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David Kynaston
Bloomsbury 2008
Kynaston’s social and political history of Britain in the immediate post-war years is a tour de force. He tells of the hopeful idealism of the Labour government elected in the 1945 landslide, and how that idealism slowly diffused and ebbed away, leaving us with many of the problems this country still faces today. He also recounts how my parents’ generation coped with the grim years of rationing and austerity after the euphoria of victory all too quickly disappeared. What struck me more than this account of a history familiar to many, though, is the vivid picture he gives of a time so different from now, culled from testimony from real people in letters, autobiographies, and Mass Observation diaries. Whilst so much has changed, however, it was both depressing and reassuring to see how much has stayed the same and to learn that so many of today’s problems, in particular violent crime, are, despite the doomsayers’ pronouncements, nothing new. This book certainly debunks other rose-tinted accounts of the time. A significant part of it concerns itself with housing, and in particular the replacement of so-called slums with planned estates. It is striking how little attention was paid to the wishes of the people who would have to live in these places, and how much unhappiness could have been avoided had they been listened to - striking, but not surprising. Planners and architects still remain convinced they know better, despite sixty years’ evidence to the contrary.
Kynaston’s next book, dealing with fifties’ Britain (Family Britain), is due to appear in the autumn; I can’t wait.
29th May 2009
http://www.bloomsbury.com/authors/details.aspx?tpid=2758
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