In the original dust jacket. Black cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

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Family Britain continues David Kynaston’s groundbreaking series Tales of a New Jerusalem, telling as never before the story of Britain from VE Day in 1945 to the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

• • ‘The book is a marvel … the level of detail is precise and fascinating’ Sunday Telegraph

• ‘A wonderfully illuminating picture of the way we were’ The Times

As in Austerity Britain, an astonishing array of vivid, intimate and unselfconscious voices drive the narrative. The keen-eyed Nella Last shops assiduously at Barrow Market as austerity and rationing gradually give way to relative abundance; housewife Judy Haines, relishing the detail of suburban life, brings up her children in Chingford; the self-absorbed civil servant Henry St John perfects the art of grumbling.

These and many other voices give a rich, unsentimental picture of everyday life in the 1950s. We also encounter well-known figures on the way, such as Doris Lessing (joining and later leaving the Communist Party), John Arlott (sticking up on Any Questions? for the rights of homosexuals) and Tiger‘s Roy of the Rovers (making his goal-scoring debut for Melchester).

All this is part of a colourful, unfolding tapestry, in which the great national events – the Tories returning to power, the death of George VI, the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth, the Suez Crisis – jostle alongside everything that gave Britain in the 1950s its distinctive flavour: Butlin’s holiday camps, Kenwood food mixers, Hancock’s Half-Hour, Ekco television sets, Davy Crockett, skiffle and teddy boys. Deeply researched, David Kynaston’s Family Britain offers an unrivalled take on a largely cohesive, ordered, still very hierarchical society gratefully starting to move away from the painful hardships of the 1940s towards domestic ease and affluence.

Reviews

• • PRAISE FOR AUSTERITY BRITAIN: ‘This wonderful volume is only the first in a series that will take us to 1979 and the election of Margaret Thatcher. When complete, Kynaston’s skill in mixing eyewitness accounts and political analysis will surely be one of the greatest and most enduring publishing ventures for generations.’ ― Brian Thompson, Observer

• ‘Even readers who can remember the years Kynaston writes about will find they are continually surprised by the richness and diversity of his material … mouth-watering’ ― John Carey, Sunday Times

• ‘The book is a marvel … the level of detail is precise and fascinating’ ― John Campbell, Sunday Telegraph

• ‘A wonderfully illuminating picture of the way we were’ ― Roy Hattersley, The Times

• Family Britain continues David Kynaston’s groundbreaking series Tales of a New Jerusalem, telling as never before the story of Britain from VE Day in 1945 to the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

David Thomas Anthony Kynaston ( born 30 July 1951 in Aldershot) is an English historian specialising in the social history of England. Kynaston was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire and New College, Oxford, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in modern history in 1973, and was awarded a PhD from the London School of Economics on the history of the London Stock Exchange in 1983.

Kynaston became a visiting professor at Kingston University in 2001.

In 2007 Kynaston published Austerity Britain, 1945–1951 to much acclaim. The title consists of two books that together make the first volume in a projected series of six entitled Tales of a New Jerusalem. In this series Kynaston intends to chronicle the history of Great Britain from the end of World War II to the ascension of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. Austerity Britain was named “Book of the Decade” by The Sunday Times.

Family Britain (2010) is the second volume in the series, and was also released as two books. It covers the period from 1951 to the Suez crisis of 1956. The volume was serialized on BBC Radio 4 as its Book of the Week for 23 November 2009, read by Dominic West.

The third volume, Modernity Britain, covering the years 1957–62, was published as two books in June 2013 and 2014.

The first book of the fourth volume, A Northern Wind, covering the years 1962–65, was published in September 2023