A Northern Wind: Britain 1962-65 by David Kynaston

The early sixties in Britain told as only David Kynaston ('the most entertaining historian alive' Spectator) can.

Running from 1962 to 1965, A Northern Wind is the anticipated new volume in the landmark ‘Tales of a New Jerusalem’ series. 

How much can change in two and a half years?

In the case of Britain in the Sixties, the answer is: almost everything.

From the seismic coming of Liverpool's the Beatles to a sex scandal that rocked the Tory government to the arrival at No 10 of Harold Wilson, a Yorkshireman utterly different from his Old Etonian predecessors.

A Northern Wind, the keenly anticipated next instalment of David Kynaston’s acclaimed Tales of a New Jerusalem series, brings to vivid life the period between October 1962 and February 1965. Drawing upon an unparalleled array of diaries, newspapers and first-hand recollections, Kynaston’s masterful storytelling refreshes familiar events – the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Big Freeze, the assassination of JFK, the funeral of Winston Churchill – while revealing in all their variety the experiences of the people living through this history.

Major themes complement the compelling narrative: an anti-Establishment mood epitomised by the BBC’s controversial That Was The Week That Was; a welfare state only slowly becoming more responsive to the individual needs of its users; and the rise of consumer culture, as Habitat arrived and shopping centres like Birmingham’s Bull Ring proliferated.

Multi-voiced, multi-dimensional and immersive, Tales of a New Jerusalem has transformed how we see and understand post-war Britain. A Northern Wind continues the journey.

REVIEWS

'From Daleks and dingy tower blocks to nuclear threats, this addictively readable book charts dizzying change . . . Sometimes moving, often comic, always fascinating' DOMINIC SANDBROOK, SUNDAY TIMES

'Magnificent . . .The early Sixties have never been recounted so well' THE TIMES, BOOKS OF THE YEAR

'A breathtaking array of treasures . . .A book to savour' TLS

'Extraordinarily atmospheric, capturing more than anything a sense of what this moment might have felt like to live through' FINANCIAL TIMES

'Kynaston is the most humane and even-handed chronicler of our time, and the one best-qualified to carry this mightily compelling national story onwards' OBSERVER

Paperback

Language: English
Extent: 704
Publish Date: 4 Jul 2024
ISBN: 9781526657565
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Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC