It is time to look afresh at the 1970s. It was not a grey decade of decline, defeat and power blackouts. Bursting with cultural experimentation, sexual liberation and industrial militancy, the 1970s saw the ruling elites of Britain challenged at every level, most especially by a Labour left led by Tony Benn which aimed to effect a "fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of working people". That Option No Longer Exists reveals a hidden history - how ...

Published in the centenary year of the 1917 Russian Revolution, No Less Than Mystic is a fresh and iconoclastic history of Lenin and the Bolsheviks for a generation uninterested in Cold War ideologies and stereotypes.Although it offers a full and complete history of Leninism, 1917, the Russian Civil War and its aftermath, the book devotes more time than usual to the policies and actions of the socialist alternatives to Bolshevism – to the Menshevik Internationalists, the S...

I Could Be So Good For You is a unique portrait of north London's working class from the 1950s to the 21st century, and how it lived, struggled, survived and sometimes thrived.I Could Be So Good For You tackles head-on the pernicious and implicitly racist fiction that London, most especially north London, has no "real" working class in comparison to a more "authentic" working class in a place called "the North".

Sub Culture explores the crucial role of the submarine in modern history, its contribution to scientific progress and maritime exploration, and how it has been portrayed in art, literature, fantasy and film. Ranging from the American Civil War to the destruction of the Kursk, the book examines the submarine’s activities in the First and Second World Wars, the Cold War, and in covert operations and marine exploration to the present day. Citing the submarine, particularly t...

A deep dive into the significance of submarines, across everything from warfare and politics to literature and film.Sub Culture explores the crucial role of the submarine in modern history, its contribution to scientific progress and maritime exploration, and how it has been portrayed in art, literature, fantasy, and film. Ranging from the American Civil War to the destruction of the Russian submarine Kursk in 2000, the book examines the submarine's activi...

Nostalgia, identity, eccentricity, gin drinking and occasional violence... these are just some of the themes that stand-up comedian Dara O Briain explores in Tickling the English.O Briain moved to England many years ago, but when he takes his show on tour around the country - from deserted seaside towns and remote off-shore islands, to sprawling industrial cities and sleepy suburbs - it's clear to him that his adopted home is still a bit of an enigma.Why do the Eng...

Did you know?In 1884 the Circle Line opened and was described in The Times as 'a form of mild torture which no person would undergo if he could conveniently help it.'According to one psychologist, Tube commuters can experience greater levels of stress than a police officer facing a rioting mob or even a fighter pilot going into a dogfight.Underground trains have only twice been used to transport deceased people in coffins: William Gladston...

A Northerner in exile, Stuart Maconie goes on a journey in search of the North, attempting to discover where the clich�s end and the truth begins. He travels from Wigan Pier to Blackpool Tower and Newcastle's Bigg Market to the Lake District to find his own Northern Soul, encountering along the way an exotic cast of chippy Scousers, pie-eating woollybacks, topless Geordies, mad-for-it Mancs, Yorkshire nationalists and brothers in southern exile.The bestselling Pies and Prejudic...

The Sunday Times bestseller THE STORY OF BRITAIN during the long reign of Queen Elizabeth II. Find out how Britain changed in this entrancing, lively portrait of Britain’s Elizabethan Age by bestselling writer and broadcaster Andrew MarrBritain changed fundamentally during the Queen’s long, distinguished reign. So who made modern Britain the country it is today? How do we sum up the kind of people we are? What did it mean to be the new Elizabethans?

Faultless - Football365As EURO 2000 approached, attention once again focused on the potential threat posed by the activities of football hooligans. Not just those from England, but also from Holland, Belgium, Germany,Italy, France and even Turkey.Yet as this last year has proven, whilst the hooligans in other nations cause as much, if not more, trouble than their English counterparts, it is the activities of the fans from this country which always seems to attract the great...

SELECTED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019 BY THE TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, LONDON EVENING STANDARD, DAILY MAIL AND BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE'Magisterial ... If anyone wants to know what has been happening to Britain since the 1950s, it is difficult to imagine a more informative, or better-humoured guide ... a Thucydidean coolness, balance and wisdom that is superb.' - AN Wilson, The Times'Who Dares Wins

‘Seeing Red’ is an exclusive extract from the best-selling ‘Mad For It’, published in association with FourFourTwo magazine. It examines one of the greatest sporting rivalries from the viewpoint of the people that matter; the fans.‘Mad For It’ proves that some football matches are far more than just a game.These short extracts, from the original book published in association with FourFourTwo magazine, provide a fresh and revealing insight into the people that make these mat...