Across the country, a profound argument about the future of the nation was being played out, not just in families and schools but in everything from episodes of "Doctor Who" to singles by the Clash. In this title, the author recreates the period of the late 1970s in all its chaos and contradiction, revealing it as a decisive point in our history.

In this history, Dominic Sandbrook recreates the gaudy atmosphere of the early 1970s: the world of Enoch Powell & Tony Benn, David Bowie & Brian Clough, Germaine Greer & Mary Whitehouse. An age when the unions were on the march & the socialist revolution seemed at hand.

Arguing that historians have been besotted by the cultural revolution of the Sixties, Dominic Sandbrook re-examines the myths of this controversial period and paints a more complicated picture of a society caught between conservatism and change. He explores the growth of a modern consumer society, the impact of immigration, the invention of modern pop music, and the British retreat from empire. He tells the story of the colourful characters of the period, like Harold Macmillan, Kingsley Amis, and Paul McCartney, and brings to life the experience of the first post-imperial generation, from the...

Harold Wilson's famous reference to 'white heat' captured the optimistic spirit of a society in the midst of breathtaking change. From the gaudy pleasures of Swinging London to the tragic bloodshed in Northern Ireland, from the intrigues of Westminster to the drama of the World Cup, British life seemed to have taken on a dramatic new momentum.

The memories, images and colourful personalities of those heady times still resonate today: mop-tops and mini-skirts, strikes and demonstrations, Carnaby Street and Kings Road, Harold Wilson and Edward Heath, Mary Quant and Jean Shrimpton, Enoch...

'Delightfully good ... an exuberant and learned celebration of British culture ... full of love for and fascination with everything from the origins of heavy metal in the metal-bashing industries of the West Midlands to John Lennon's and Damien Hirst's lust for money' Nick Cohen, Observer 'Terrific ... I defy you not to be swept up in a narrative that's as colourful as it is dramatic' - John Preston, Mail on Sunday 'Dramatic, perceptive and often extremely funny' Spectator, Books of the Year Britain's empire has gone. We no longer matter as we once did. And yet there is still one area in...