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Events, Dear Boy, Events: A Political Diary of Britain from Woolf to Campbell: A Political Diary of Britain 1921-2010

Events, Dear Boy, Events: A Political Diary of Britain from Woolf to Campbell: A Political Diary of Britain 1921-2010

by RuthWinstone (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2012

    $5.54
Synopsis

Ruth Winstone retells Britain's history through the great diarists of the last century, drawing back the curtain on the lives of political classes, their doubts, ambitions, and emotions. She moves deftly among those in the thick of it, showing the elation, anger, doubts, jealousy, joys and fears of those such as Nicolson, Cooper, Channon, Macmillan, Castle, Clark, Benn, Campbell, Mullin and Ashdown as they record their own and the nation's triumphs and disasters. To this potent mix she adds the mordant perceptions of observers like Virginia Woolf, Cecil Beaton, Peter Hall and Roy Strong, and the vivid records of everyday life found in the diaries of otherwise ordinary men and women. Events, Dear Boy, Events reveals Britain's recent past in the words of the actors who were shaping the events of the day. This is living real-time history.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 640
 Edition: Main
 Publisher: Profile Books
Published: 04 Oct 2012
ISBN 10: 1846684323
ISBN 13: 9781846684326
Book Overview: Brings twentieth-century British politics vividly to life and reveals perspectives on the tumultuous events it sought to control, the changes it resisted and the reforms it brought into being.

Media Reviews
Diaries are the most intimate historical source, and Ruth Winstone has brilliantly welded together the best of them into a compellingly seductive narrative. We learn of ambition and vanity, of folly and brilliance, of friendship and rivalry, of the law of unintended consequences, and the cumulative effect is like a great rolling novel. Political history has never been so palatable. -- David Kynaston
A great Christmas gift * Bookseller *
Ruth Winstone's edited volume of diary entries provides a fascinating and original series of insights into modern Britain, spanning the years from Lloyd George's coalition of 1918 to that of 2012. Its miscellany of vignettes, drawn from intellectuals and figures from the arts as well as politicians, illuminates vividly the pieces from which the mosaic of British twentieth-century history was constructed -- Kenneth O Morgan
This collection is a delight from beginning to end. There's a gem on almost every page. Such a volume is a great idea, hugely enhanced by Ruth Winstone's brilliant eye -- Peter Hennessy
A vivid and vital chronicle of our recent political past, culled from the pages of Britain's greatest twentieth-century diarists, who were there at the time and saw history happen. It is an enthralling read, full of old friends and new acquaintances, and there is no other book like it! -- David Cannadine
Fascinating -- Matthew Engel * Financial Times *
A bright idea -- Simon Hoggart * Guardian *
A fascinating new anthology, Events, Dear Boy, Events, edited by Ruth Winstone, shows it is even possible to write a history of the past hundred years through snippets from diaries. But the genre is far older than that.The template was created by Samuel Pepys in the 1660s, though it was not until the 19th century that anyone cracked the code of his shorthand and discovered the glory of it. -- Matthew Engel * Financial Times *
Dipping into Events, Dear Boy, Events and matching one's own recollections of an Event , especially one in which one was a participant, with those of bystanders at the same event is an almost surreal experience. Perhaps the greatest value of the book is not what it tells readers about the Events but what it tells about those who witnessed and wrote about them. * Lord Tebbit *
These gems provide instant, private thoughts to changing events. A book like this one that Ms Winstone has so carefully curated may be the last of its kind; tweets and blogs are steadily taking over. More folk are writing as a result. But diaries are different. Full of stories, sneers, passions and dreams, they make a greater mark on history than a tweet * Economist *
Interesting * Daily Mail *
A clever book -- Quentin Letts * Daily Mail *
A patchwork quilt ... providing in total a remarkably clear and coherent portrait of 90 stressful years ... almost every page contains something unmissable -- Philip Ziegler * Spectator *
This wonderful book relates the 20th century's follies and perceptions through selections from British diarists * Independent *
Author Bio
Ruth Winstone is the editor of Chris Mullin's trilogy of diaries covering British political life 1994-2010 and of Tony Benn's written and taped records. For many years she worked as a senior clerk in the library of the House of Commons.