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Rule, Nostalgia Hannah Rose Woods

Rule, Nostalgia By Hannah Rose Woods

Rule, Nostalgia by Hannah Rose Woods

Reviews:
£5.80
New RRP £20.00
Condition - Very Good
<20 in stock
Very Good

Rule, Nostalgia Summary

Rule, Nostalgia: A Backwards History of Britain by Hannah Rose Woods

** A FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN AND GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR **

'Rule, Nostalgia announces Woods as one of the most interesting new historians of her generation' - Dan Jones, Sunday Times


'Hannah Rose Woods explores how illusory and contested golden ages have haunted Britain since medieval times... Intelligent and eminently readable' - Richard Evans, New Statesman (Book of the Day)


'Our national story is so much stranger than we think: this book brilliantly insists that we look at it afresh' - James Hawes, bestselling author of The Shortest History of England
____________________________________________________

Britain is an island ruled by nostalgia, but nostalgia today isn't what it used to be...

Longing to go back to the 'good old days' is nothing new. For hundreds of years, the British have mourned the loss of older national identities and called for a revival 'simple', 'better' ways of life - from Margaret Thatcher's call for a return to 'Victorian values' in the 1980s, to William Blake's protest against the 'dark satanic mills' of the Industrial Revolution that were fast transforming England's green and pleasant land, to sixteenth-century observers looking back wistfully to a 'Merry England' before the upheavals of the Reformation. By the time we reach the 1500s, we find a country nostalgic for a vision of home that looks very different to our own.

But were the 'good old days' ever quite how we remember them? Beginning in the present, cultural historian Hannah Rose Woods takes us back on an eye-opening tour through five hundred years of Britain's perennial fixation with its own past to reveal that history is more complex than we care to remember. Asking why nostalgia has been such an enduring and seductive emotion across hundreds of years of change, Woods separates the history from the fantasy, debunks pervasive myths about the past, and illuminates the remarkable influence that nostalgia's perpetual backwards glance has had on British history, politics and society.

Rule, Nostalgia is a timely and enlightening interrogation of national character, emotion, identity and myth making that elucidates how this nostalgic isle's history was written, re-written and (rightly or wrongly) remembered.

Rule, Nostalgia Reviews

Indispensible and fascinating * The Guardian (A 2022 Book of the Year) *
A sharp new history of longing for the good old days. Hannah Rose Woods pens a rich account of all that has been lost to chauvinism and conservatism over the past decade * Tristram Hunt, Financial Times *
Rule, Nostalgia announces Woods as one of the most interesting new historians of her generation * Dan Jones, Sunday Times *
An impressive book that ranges from the 16th-century Reformation to Brexit * Financial Times (A 2022 Book of the Year) *
Hannah Rose Woods explores how illusory and contested golden ages have haunted Britain since medieval times... [An] intelligent and eminently readable book * Richard Evans, New Statesman (Book of the Day) *
A dark history of nostalgia... a timely book... Woods selects and deploys her material well, persuading the reader, in the course of an enjoyable book, that a feeling full of sweetness and sadness is also a dark and dangerous force * The Times *
Woods is a sharp, iconoclastic writer... A great book * John Harris, The Guardian, Politics Weekly UK's summer reading list *
Eye-opening and thoughtful... Woods has a bright future ahead of her * The Telegraph *
A must read for anyone wanting to see current events and ideologies in light of the past, and understand where the roots of our sense of a nation originated * Janina Ramirez, bestselling author of Femina *
Fascinating and timely, Rule, Nostalgia is an eye-opening history of Britain's enduring fixation with its own past * Jeremy Paxman *
I heartily recommend Rule, Nostalgia. [It] helps explain where we are, as well as where we came from * Dan Jones, bestselling author of Powers and Thrones *
I love this book, a witty, acerbic but warm look at how our national character is built on yearning for a glorious past that is just gone, and actually probably never existed. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be * Adam Rutherford, bestselling author of How to Argue With a Racist *
Our national story is so much stranger than we think: this book brilliantly insists that we look at it afresh * James Hawes, bestselling author of The Shortest History of England *
Well-argued, timely and hugely entertaining. A great piece of popular history * Jonathan Coe, bestselling author of Middle England *
A great, scholarly history, and so searingly relevant * Dan Snow, author of On This Day in History *
An utterly eye-opening and enthralling debut, clearly laying out our uniquely British obsession with nostalgia. Required reading for anyone who wants to use the term 'culture war'... I absolutely loved it * Fern Riddell, author of Death in Ten Minutes: The forgotten life of radical suffragette Kitty Marion *
A smart, entertaining and meticulously researched backwards look (quite literally) at Britain's history of looking over its shoulder. Deconstructs the lure of the fictitious 'good old days' and how they have been weaponised throughout history. Excellent * Otto English, author of Fake History *
Outstanding. A thrilling, elegant and highly original interrogation of how we use our pasts * Musa Okwonga, author of One of Them: An Eton College Memoir *
Nostalgia was once considered a terminal condition. Hannah Woods suggests that the culture needs to book itself in for a check-up. Provocative and well-argued, Rule, Nostalgia offers the diagnosis that might lead us to a cure * Matthew Sweet, author of Inventing the Victorians *
A triumphal backwards tour through the history of Britain's relationship with its own past. This funny, sad, wise and brilliantly informative book is a crash course in the many pasts that have made our presents * Peter Mitchell, author of Imperial Nostalgia: How the British Conquered Themselves *
Rule, Nostalgia is radiant with an enthusiast's passion for their subject, and makes a convincing case that Britain's history is sufficiently weird, fascinating and marvellous, without rewriting it into comforting fables * The New Humanist *
Rule, Nostalgia is a triumphal backwards tour through the history of Britain's relationship with its own past, a chronicle of our state of perpetual longing for a paradise just gone. Woods' eye is ironic, but never without sympathy as she teases apart the nested structures of mourning and nostalgia on which out national identity is built. This funny, sad, wise and brilliantly informative book is both a plea for historiographical literacy and a crash course in the many pasts that have made our presents * Peter Mitchell, author of Imperial Nostalgia: How the British Conquered Themselves *

About Hannah Rose Woods

Hannah Rose Woods is a writer and cultural historian. She has a PhD from the University of Cambridge, where she taught modern British history, and in 2016 captained her college's team to victory on that most nostalgic of television programmes, University Challenge. She has written on history, politics and culture for the New Statesman, the Guardian, History Today, Art UK and Elle magazine, and has appeared as a contributor on Dan Snow's History Hit Podcast, Tortoise Media ThinkIns, BBC Radio 5 Live and Radio 4's Front Row, the Today programme, The World at One and The World Tonight to discuss topics including nostalgia, public history, Victorian culture, gender equality and universities.

Twitter: @hannahrosewoods

Additional information

GOR012476009
9780753558737
0753558734
Rule, Nostalgia: A Backwards History of Britain by Hannah Rose Woods
Hannah Rose Woods
Used - Very Good
Hardback
Ebury Publishing
20220526
400
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Rule, Nostalgia