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The North Will Rise Again
An in-depth exploration of the importance of the North of England in the modern era.
The North Will Rise Again covers the colourful adventures of its inhabitants, the expansiveness and optimism that defines Northern culture, and the recurrent sense of failure and despair that is at the heart of one of the West's most impoverished regions.
By telling the story of the North in the last few decades, Alex goes in search of answers to some of the big questions at the forefront of British politics and society today, touching on live issues including the North/South divide, austerity, the impact of Brexit, the collapse of Labour's 'Red Wall', and calls for regional devolution. He concludes with a powerful argument for a revival of northern politics and society by way of what he calls 'radical regionalism'.
A native Northerner himself, having returned to his home city of Newcastle with his family in the last few years, Alex also includes elements of memoir and stories from his own family history to reflect some of the key arguments of his book.
To what extent are the crises of the last ten years partly the result of fundamental divides and inequalities in the geography of England? How did the North become a place of lost potential and broken dreams? And what can be done to make it one of the most dynamic and forward-looking places in the world once again? Niven considers all these questions and more in this lively and highly topical book.
The North Will Rise Again covers the colourful adventures of its inhabitants, the expansiveness and optimism that defines Northern culture, and the recurrent sense of failure and despair that is at the heart of one of the West's most impoverished regions.
By telling the story of the North in the last few decades, Alex goes in search of answers to some of the big questions at the forefront of British politics and society today, touching on live issues including the North/South divide, austerity, the impact of Brexit, the collapse of Labour's 'Red Wall', and calls for regional devolution. He concludes with a powerful argument for a revival of northern politics and society by way of what he calls 'radical regionalism'.
A native Northerner himself, having returned to his home city of Newcastle with his family in the last few years, Alex also includes elements of memoir and stories from his own family history to reflect some of the key arguments of his book.
To what extent are the crises of the last ten years partly the result of fundamental divides and inequalities in the geography of England? How did the North become a place of lost potential and broken dreams? And what can be done to make it one of the most dynamic and forward-looking places in the world once again? Niven considers all these questions and more in this lively and highly topical book.
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About the author
Alex Niven
20 books23 followersAlex Niven is an English writer, poet, editor, and former musician.
Niven was a founding member of the indie band Everything Everything, with friends from Queen Elizabeth High School in Hexham, Northumberland. He played guitar with the band between 2007 and 2009 before leaving to study for a doctorate at St John's College, Oxford and pursue a writing career.
Niven's first work of criticism, Folk Opposition, was published by Zero Books in 2011. The book attempted to reclaim a variety of folk culture motifs for the political left, and excoriated the "Green Tory" zeitgeist that had accompanied the ascendancy of David Cameron's Conservative Party in Britain in 2009-10. His second book, a study of the Oasis album Definitely Maybe, was published in Bloomsbury's 33⅓ series in 2014.
Formerly assistant editor at New Left Review and editor-in-chief at The Oxonian Review, Niven has also written for The Guardian, The Independent, openDemocracy, Agenda, The Cambridge Quarterly, English Literary History, Oxford Poetry, Notes and Queries, The Quietus, and a number of collective blogs in addition to his own blog The Fantastic Hope. His first collection of poetry, The Last Tape, was published in 2014, and his poem "The Beehive" provided the epigraph to Owen Hatherley's 2012 architecture survey A New Kind of Bleak.
He is currently Lecturer in English Literature at Newcastle University and an editor at Repeater Books.
Niven was a founding member of the indie band Everything Everything, with friends from Queen Elizabeth High School in Hexham, Northumberland. He played guitar with the band between 2007 and 2009 before leaving to study for a doctorate at St John's College, Oxford and pursue a writing career.
Niven's first work of criticism, Folk Opposition, was published by Zero Books in 2011. The book attempted to reclaim a variety of folk culture motifs for the political left, and excoriated the "Green Tory" zeitgeist that had accompanied the ascendancy of David Cameron's Conservative Party in Britain in 2009-10. His second book, a study of the Oasis album Definitely Maybe, was published in Bloomsbury's 33⅓ series in 2014.
Formerly assistant editor at New Left Review and editor-in-chief at The Oxonian Review, Niven has also written for The Guardian, The Independent, openDemocracy, Agenda, The Cambridge Quarterly, English Literary History, Oxford Poetry, Notes and Queries, The Quietus, and a number of collective blogs in addition to his own blog The Fantastic Hope. His first collection of poetry, The Last Tape, was published in 2014, and his poem "The Beehive" provided the epigraph to Owen Hatherley's 2012 architecture survey A New Kind of Bleak.
He is currently Lecturer in English Literature at Newcastle University and an editor at Repeater Books.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
February 8, 2024
I'm so sad to feel let down by this book. I went in with an open mind, because a book selling itself as being about North England could go in any direction - and I think this book falls because that's what it tries to do. In general I felt confused about what the book sets out to do and how it gets there. It wants to do social, cultural, and political commentary but the chapters and ideas jump about without a clear thread pulling them together. Only in the later chapters do we start to get a sense of coherence.
If I was the editor, I would have opened the boom with the authors return to the north to begun the questions of what is Northern identity. Then, perhaps a more coherent timeline from the Thatcher years to New Labour to the failures of Corbynism.
Also, I knew fully that there would be a Newcastle bias, but the author reassures in the intro that he does give attention to other parts of the north. But those are mere crumbs comparatively, I wonder that the editorial team didnt think to suggest more research. At least my home city got a mention in a footnote of the places worst hit by austerity. Yay. If you want a chapter on Northern music, go in depth into various bands, and dont remember the beatles last minute. If you want to do a chapter on film or football - likewise. How did these things shape Northern identity within and across counties? My Northern identity isn't shaped by a couple of cultural figures from Newcastle, so perhaps some interviews or anecdotes would have helped the writer. He spoke about the need to go beyond fragmented Northern identities, but his own book suggests that is is impossible for us to truly connect to build our own movement. Also the less said about the Northern independence Party the better.
Anyways this feels a little savage so I will say that I am happy to have learnt more about some cultural figures, and the author does put in some beautiful sentences. Going to contemplate how I became part of the Northern stowaway tradition by moving to London and then beyond the first chance I had :')
If I was the editor, I would have opened the boom with the authors return to the north to begun the questions of what is Northern identity. Then, perhaps a more coherent timeline from the Thatcher years to New Labour to the failures of Corbynism.
Also, I knew fully that there would be a Newcastle bias, but the author reassures in the intro that he does give attention to other parts of the north. But those are mere crumbs comparatively, I wonder that the editorial team didnt think to suggest more research. At least my home city got a mention in a footnote of the places worst hit by austerity. Yay. If you want a chapter on Northern music, go in depth into various bands, and dont remember the beatles last minute. If you want to do a chapter on film or football - likewise. How did these things shape Northern identity within and across counties? My Northern identity isn't shaped by a couple of cultural figures from Newcastle, so perhaps some interviews or anecdotes would have helped the writer. He spoke about the need to go beyond fragmented Northern identities, but his own book suggests that is is impossible for us to truly connect to build our own movement. Also the less said about the Northern independence Party the better.
Anyways this feels a little savage so I will say that I am happy to have learnt more about some cultural figures, and the author does put in some beautiful sentences. Going to contemplate how I became part of the Northern stowaway tradition by moving to London and then beyond the first chance I had :')
February 9, 2023
As a proud northerner, I have to say that I loved this book. Alex Niven has written something that makes you feel proud of where you come from and which inspires you not to accept the lot that we have been given by a political and economic establishment that for many years has systematically treated the north with varying levels of disdain.
The central theme of this book is that the north cannot sit back and accept things as they are or indeed tolerate any longer its current position as a neglected outpost within the UK. In order for the north to reach its full potential, Niven argues, nothing less than a total transformation of existing power structures and inter-regional relationships will do. To make his arguments, Niven invokes the progressive and often revolutionary nature of the north’s art and culture and the region’s recent history. He is particularly insightful on the musical legacy of the north and rightly reclaims the 80s as an era of exciting and often subversive music.
Niven is also an author from whom you learn stuff too and I will now go away and seek out some of the culture he mentions, including a wide and eclectic canon of art, poetry, music, books and film, to further my knowledge of the region. Like Niven, I returned to the north after many years of working in London and his observations on what it’s like to be a returner certainly struck a chord. Like me, he found that coming back only deepened his love for a region and a people like no other in these islands and such ardour only makes him more passionate in his urgent impatience to see the north make a better future for itself.
Above all, The North Will Rise Again is a book of hope and I found it a totally life-enhancing read. Part biography, travelogue, polemic and love letter to the region, I cannot recommend it too highly and strongly urge everyone to read it. To underline the hopeful spirit in which the book is written, I will end my review by leaving you with the, hopefully, prophetic words of northern actor and singer, Jimmy Nail, from the title track of his Big River album, which sum up much of Alex Niven’s book’s conclusions.
“Cause this is a mighty town,
Built upon a solid ground,
And everything they've tried so hard to kill,
We will rebuild”
Well said Jimmy! And well written Alex!
The central theme of this book is that the north cannot sit back and accept things as they are or indeed tolerate any longer its current position as a neglected outpost within the UK. In order for the north to reach its full potential, Niven argues, nothing less than a total transformation of existing power structures and inter-regional relationships will do. To make his arguments, Niven invokes the progressive and often revolutionary nature of the north’s art and culture and the region’s recent history. He is particularly insightful on the musical legacy of the north and rightly reclaims the 80s as an era of exciting and often subversive music.
Niven is also an author from whom you learn stuff too and I will now go away and seek out some of the culture he mentions, including a wide and eclectic canon of art, poetry, music, books and film, to further my knowledge of the region. Like Niven, I returned to the north after many years of working in London and his observations on what it’s like to be a returner certainly struck a chord. Like me, he found that coming back only deepened his love for a region and a people like no other in these islands and such ardour only makes him more passionate in his urgent impatience to see the north make a better future for itself.
Above all, The North Will Rise Again is a book of hope and I found it a totally life-enhancing read. Part biography, travelogue, polemic and love letter to the region, I cannot recommend it too highly and strongly urge everyone to read it. To underline the hopeful spirit in which the book is written, I will end my review by leaving you with the, hopefully, prophetic words of northern actor and singer, Jimmy Nail, from the title track of his Big River album, which sum up much of Alex Niven’s book’s conclusions.
“Cause this is a mighty town,
Built upon a solid ground,
And everything they've tried so hard to kill,
We will rebuild”
Well said Jimmy! And well written Alex!
April 5, 2024
3.5 - Some chapters were really gripping and others, particularly those providing a 20 page case study on a niche 20th century musician or writer, were monotonous to get through
January 30, 2025
I really enjoyed this. It explores the vibrant creative output the North has produced despite, or perhaps because of, the history of subordination by its southern counterparts. From art and architecture, music, literature, politics and football there was lots to take pride in as an already proud northerner! I was fascinated to learn that the setting of Huxley’s Brave New World was inspired by my childhood backyard vista of ICI, and that Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner by the abandoned industrial wildernesses of Hartlepool and Redcar. I also enjoyed the concept of many heroic failures of the North, and Northerners. Leans in bias towards Newcastle and the North East, but for me this was a plus as it’s not often we see celebrations of the North East out there.
February 11, 2025
I enjoyed this delve into Northern England's cultural and political landscape, highlighting the profound influence on arts, poetry, and film reflecting the region's unique culture and context. He argues that the North has been a bastion of urbanism, modernity, and artistic experimentation, contrasting with the South's focus on "rural idylls and stately symbols of the past."
I found at times Niven's integration of personal narrative with broader analysis occasionally makes the central arguments challenging to follow but his examination of the North's cultural history through the 19th but particularly 20th century onwards towards the end of the book is compelling. He candidly discusses the impacts of post-industrialism, Thatcherism, and New Labour, shedding light on their contributions to the North's current state and the impact on culture and citizen's personal wellbeing. His call for radical action through an acid approach and reimagining of culture and politics is a proposal that adds a fresh forward-looking perspective after quite a pessimistic read.
I found at times Niven's integration of personal narrative with broader analysis occasionally makes the central arguments challenging to follow but his examination of the North's cultural history through the 19th but particularly 20th century onwards towards the end of the book is compelling. He candidly discusses the impacts of post-industrialism, Thatcherism, and New Labour, shedding light on their contributions to the North's current state and the impact on culture and citizen's personal wellbeing. His call for radical action through an acid approach and reimagining of culture and politics is a proposal that adds a fresh forward-looking perspective after quite a pessimistic read.
November 28, 2025
What does Alex Niven want? It’s not entirely clear from reading ‘The North Will Rise Again’. Positioning himself as the leftwing scribe of English identity, both this and his previous effort ‘New Model Island’ only partially succeed as nuanced dissections of place and the role it plays in culture and politics. Specifically for England, the sense of absence, loss, and subjection haunting the atmosphere of these islands comes across in his writing. But as with ‘New Model Island’, following the diagnosis, any path forward is buried in a vague, gestural stew.
He is clear from the outset that this is not an exhaustive survey of Northern counterculture, nor is it an encyclopaedia. So what is it? By my reckoning, it’s a disparate selection of meandering vignettes on culture and politics only tangentially related to the purported thesis, skewed heavily toward the author’s personal interests. The whiplash inducing flow bouncing between peaks of euphoria and troughs of pessimism every bit as dramatic as the recent history of his chosen subject matter.
I’m just not entirely convinced he spent much time mapping out how the book’s content would feed into its advertised mission statement. Something made all the more frustrating by the fact that Niven is an insightful writer. If you are remotely interested in the politics of place and particularly the North’s idiosyncratic recent history, this book is well worth reading. Buried deep within its pages are tantalisingly original and subtle insights into this curious corner of the globe.
This is doubly frustrating for me simply because I find Niven’s ongoing mission to recover a nuanced leftwing treatment of regional and national identity a worthy and fascinating project. Niven’s relationship to the North is oddly inverse to my own. He was raised in Northumbria, studied in Manchester, gained a professional foothold in the South before landing an academic posting in Newcastle. Conversely, I was born in Wimbledon, spent my early childhood in Leeds before my parents relocated to their spiritual homeland in the Surrey hills. Subsequently moving to Leeds for university in 2008, I continue to call Yorkshire home long after graduating into an accidental career well outside of Niven’s academic compound. Despite our broadly middle class upbringings, we have both experienced the North/South divide from other ends of the telescope (his broad Geordie accent contrasts sharply with my home counties dirge, but unlike him I have never lived and worked in London).
Being “of” the South but having spent most of my life in Yorkshire, I have long nurtured a fascination with the topics Niven covers. The broader, atmospheric effects of place, region, and nationhood and how this forms our identity. Something made all the more eerie and nebulous in an uncanny post imperial England, these are themes Niven attacks with welcome gusto.
So maybe my problem with this book can be put down to its overzealous tagline? Just as ‘New Model Island’ was ostensibly about “how to build a radical culture beyond the idea of England”, ‘The North Will Rise Again’ promises to go “in search of the future in Northern heartlands”. But for all their virtues, both books fall dramatically short of these lofty aims, and both come with wordy introductions making it clear that author has no intention of achieving them. His goal is to merely gesticulate in random directions for hints, usually within the topics he’s most comfortable with – and undeniably knowledgeable about – such as literature and music, in the hope that this will somehow satisfy the reader’s curiosity.
Whilst some readers are clearly satisfied with this approach, New Model Island’s vague but intriguing speculation on English identity left anyone looking for a practical political program deeply disappointed. Equally, ‘The North Will Rise Again’ jumps between topics, themes, and purpose with a near reckless abandon sure to raise the eyebrows of even the most sympathetic reader. Part memoir, part literary review, part political history, part fluffy nostalgia, sometimes within the same sentence, I am still struggling to grasp what Niven is trying to achieve, despite enjoying much of the writing.
Full review at Hate Meditations
He is clear from the outset that this is not an exhaustive survey of Northern counterculture, nor is it an encyclopaedia. So what is it? By my reckoning, it’s a disparate selection of meandering vignettes on culture and politics only tangentially related to the purported thesis, skewed heavily toward the author’s personal interests. The whiplash inducing flow bouncing between peaks of euphoria and troughs of pessimism every bit as dramatic as the recent history of his chosen subject matter.
I’m just not entirely convinced he spent much time mapping out how the book’s content would feed into its advertised mission statement. Something made all the more frustrating by the fact that Niven is an insightful writer. If you are remotely interested in the politics of place and particularly the North’s idiosyncratic recent history, this book is well worth reading. Buried deep within its pages are tantalisingly original and subtle insights into this curious corner of the globe.
This is doubly frustrating for me simply because I find Niven’s ongoing mission to recover a nuanced leftwing treatment of regional and national identity a worthy and fascinating project. Niven’s relationship to the North is oddly inverse to my own. He was raised in Northumbria, studied in Manchester, gained a professional foothold in the South before landing an academic posting in Newcastle. Conversely, I was born in Wimbledon, spent my early childhood in Leeds before my parents relocated to their spiritual homeland in the Surrey hills. Subsequently moving to Leeds for university in 2008, I continue to call Yorkshire home long after graduating into an accidental career well outside of Niven’s academic compound. Despite our broadly middle class upbringings, we have both experienced the North/South divide from other ends of the telescope (his broad Geordie accent contrasts sharply with my home counties dirge, but unlike him I have never lived and worked in London).
Being “of” the South but having spent most of my life in Yorkshire, I have long nurtured a fascination with the topics Niven covers. The broader, atmospheric effects of place, region, and nationhood and how this forms our identity. Something made all the more eerie and nebulous in an uncanny post imperial England, these are themes Niven attacks with welcome gusto.
So maybe my problem with this book can be put down to its overzealous tagline? Just as ‘New Model Island’ was ostensibly about “how to build a radical culture beyond the idea of England”, ‘The North Will Rise Again’ promises to go “in search of the future in Northern heartlands”. But for all their virtues, both books fall dramatically short of these lofty aims, and both come with wordy introductions making it clear that author has no intention of achieving them. His goal is to merely gesticulate in random directions for hints, usually within the topics he’s most comfortable with – and undeniably knowledgeable about – such as literature and music, in the hope that this will somehow satisfy the reader’s curiosity.
Whilst some readers are clearly satisfied with this approach, New Model Island’s vague but intriguing speculation on English identity left anyone looking for a practical political program deeply disappointed. Equally, ‘The North Will Rise Again’ jumps between topics, themes, and purpose with a near reckless abandon sure to raise the eyebrows of even the most sympathetic reader. Part memoir, part literary review, part political history, part fluffy nostalgia, sometimes within the same sentence, I am still struggling to grasp what Niven is trying to achieve, despite enjoying much of the writing.
Full review at Hate Meditations
Want to read
October 1, 2025Not Alex Niven of Everything Everything?!
October 25, 2023
"To be northern is to be a subject rather than a citizen."
Spanning sixty years of northern history, this book examines the socio-political and artistic decline of the North East from Thatcher to brutal austerity. There is little Niven does not cover: architecture, music, education, public transport, mining, elections, alcoholism, mental health, governance and independence, food, the possibility of a northern Renaissance... this is a masterful consideration of what it means to be northern in the 21st century and really how far ahead we were and how far we have been left behind.
I am homesick, I am amazed to come from the north east, and I am in awe of the scope of this book.
Spanning sixty years of northern history, this book examines the socio-political and artistic decline of the North East from Thatcher to brutal austerity. There is little Niven does not cover: architecture, music, education, public transport, mining, elections, alcoholism, mental health, governance and independence, food, the possibility of a northern Renaissance... this is a masterful consideration of what it means to be northern in the 21st century and really how far ahead we were and how far we have been left behind.
I am homesick, I am amazed to come from the north east, and I am in awe of the scope of this book.
January 1, 2024
Very enjoyable on the whole and the rousing epilogue is especially good. I think it’s a shame that the author has so little to say about contemporary writing, which is a cultural sphere in which the North excels. Put on one side an Ian McEwan and on the other Benjamin Myers. It’s absolutely clear to me which has more to say about real life and the natural world. Deeply disappointing to see no mention whatsoever of Get Carter, but I was pleased to see Billy Liar given it’s due
July 14, 2024
An account of Northern identity as well as its resistance to the South's (specifically London and the Home Counties) domination of the United Kingdom that certainly captures important aspects of this hierarchy. Particularly, its discussion of urban renewal in Newcastle is gripping, but also how it connected to the general decline of the North amidst de-industrialisation. In this way, it describes well the lack of aspiration for a wider cultural renewal for the future that has ultimately dictated the destiny of the North, bounded by the intimate accounts of alcoholism present within Northern literary figures that are emblematic of the wider Northern consciousness and its decline in the face of crushing political and social realities.
This book attempts to capture the essence of the Northern consciousness through a litany of avenues, including art, housing, architecture, film, literature, politics, the countryside and sports. In some ways, it is very convincing. Some passages I read whilst listening to the songs of Northern escapism recommended by its author, which made it possible for me, a Southerner, to understand the ideas of Northern spiritual, but not physical, escapism. Its prime football example - of Kevin Keegan - was an intriguing look into sport of which its cultural elements I had previously given little thought; especially when given in the context of comparison to Corbyn's 2017 campaign.
Otherwise, I found lots of the text to be repetitive, and unhelpful in many ways. The claim that "The North Will Rise Again" seems at odds with the incessant pessimism found within the chapters. The author even acknowledges the book's title as being in essence a rhetorical device - merely a call to action rather than explaining truly how it will take place. In any case, I don't think such a book could lay out concrete steps when more text is dedicated to envisioning an "Acid Northumbria" and generally overstating the significance (and credence) of the Northern Independence Party, than preliminary steps of action.
Indeed, for all the book's juxtaposition of the North with London and the Home Counties, the book has nothing to say about the Midlands. It could be said that this would be out of the scope of the book's inquiry - but I think that, given it does briefly position the West Country, some positioning of the Heart of England would have been a simple but smart addition.
Nonetheless, the book's best passages are its damning criticisms of the failure of the post-Thatcher governments to reconstitute a purpose for the North after the Iron Lady's snatching of industry. New Labour's short-termism, the Coalition's austerity and the pitiful attempts at "Levelling Up" speak significantly to this idea. Reading this book in the opening weeks of a new Labour government under Keir Starmer breathes new life into the ability for Northern renewal. The question is whether the government will rely, like before, on crude measures and political slogans, or truly invest into the North's economic and cultural renewal, to allow it to rise again.
This book attempts to capture the essence of the Northern consciousness through a litany of avenues, including art, housing, architecture, film, literature, politics, the countryside and sports. In some ways, it is very convincing. Some passages I read whilst listening to the songs of Northern escapism recommended by its author, which made it possible for me, a Southerner, to understand the ideas of Northern spiritual, but not physical, escapism. Its prime football example - of Kevin Keegan - was an intriguing look into sport of which its cultural elements I had previously given little thought; especially when given in the context of comparison to Corbyn's 2017 campaign.
Otherwise, I found lots of the text to be repetitive, and unhelpful in many ways. The claim that "The North Will Rise Again" seems at odds with the incessant pessimism found within the chapters. The author even acknowledges the book's title as being in essence a rhetorical device - merely a call to action rather than explaining truly how it will take place. In any case, I don't think such a book could lay out concrete steps when more text is dedicated to envisioning an "Acid Northumbria" and generally overstating the significance (and credence) of the Northern Independence Party, than preliminary steps of action.
Indeed, for all the book's juxtaposition of the North with London and the Home Counties, the book has nothing to say about the Midlands. It could be said that this would be out of the scope of the book's inquiry - but I think that, given it does briefly position the West Country, some positioning of the Heart of England would have been a simple but smart addition.
Nonetheless, the book's best passages are its damning criticisms of the failure of the post-Thatcher governments to reconstitute a purpose for the North after the Iron Lady's snatching of industry. New Labour's short-termism, the Coalition's austerity and the pitiful attempts at "Levelling Up" speak significantly to this idea. Reading this book in the opening weeks of a new Labour government under Keir Starmer breathes new life into the ability for Northern renewal. The question is whether the government will rely, like before, on crude measures and political slogans, or truly invest into the North's economic and cultural renewal, to allow it to rise again.
March 18, 2025
This book was a more difficult read than I expected as it is so full of cultural references which made me aware of huge gaps in my knowledge - and these distracted me, as I had to follow up to read poetry by Basil Bunting and Tom Pickard, and look for images of work by people like Richard Hamilton and Victor Pasmore. However this was a a very rewarding distraction! Throughout the book Niven describes the importance of the North of England in the modern era, especially through its contribution to modernism expressed through poetry, architecture and popular music. There is an emphasis on the Northeast which is to be expected given Niven's origins and current place of work. I guess I would have liked to see more discussion of practical political options for the development and progress of the North of England aa a whole - the North of England is really not at all homogenous and a structure/strategy for its overall development seems tricky. However the issue gave rise to a good discussion in my book club.
August 18, 2025
Bought in the Baltic in Newcastle 2023.
I wanted to really like this book, but I found the chapters centred around ‘culture’, musicians and tv shows really difficult. I love music but it’s not something I want to delve into in a book. I didn’t mind it being ‘North East centric’ but I really felt the dread and misery from the author about the ‘state’ the North is in. I agree, a lot more could be done, but I feel the ‘state’ of the North are social issues rather than what a literal mess it’s in. It all just felt so depressing and not in keeping with ‘the north will rise again’.
I just didn’t feel the love for the North in this. I have no idea what kind of North Niven wants, but I do know he is disappointed with it now. After looking at Fourstones on a map, I am not surprised there’s barely any public transport. It is tiny!!!!!
I can’t compare what has changed in 20 years in Newcastle. But 20 years in Liverpool has made massive changes to the city centre and outskirts to reinvent and rejuvenate areas that were left to rot from the 80s and 90s.
After a conversation with family earlier last week, 40 years ago a local record shop shut and bank opened up there, 5 years ago that bank shut and now a bar has opened. My aunty was irritated her record shop shut, my mum is annoyed the banks have shut to make way for a bar. No one is ever happy with change and the movement in what a society has room for. Things change, not always for the better.
I wanted to really like this book, but I found the chapters centred around ‘culture’, musicians and tv shows really difficult. I love music but it’s not something I want to delve into in a book. I didn’t mind it being ‘North East centric’ but I really felt the dread and misery from the author about the ‘state’ the North is in. I agree, a lot more could be done, but I feel the ‘state’ of the North are social issues rather than what a literal mess it’s in. It all just felt so depressing and not in keeping with ‘the north will rise again’.
I just didn’t feel the love for the North in this. I have no idea what kind of North Niven wants, but I do know he is disappointed with it now. After looking at Fourstones on a map, I am not surprised there’s barely any public transport. It is tiny!!!!!
I can’t compare what has changed in 20 years in Newcastle. But 20 years in Liverpool has made massive changes to the city centre and outskirts to reinvent and rejuvenate areas that were left to rot from the 80s and 90s.
After a conversation with family earlier last week, 40 years ago a local record shop shut and bank opened up there, 5 years ago that bank shut and now a bar has opened. My aunty was irritated her record shop shut, my mum is annoyed the banks have shut to make way for a bar. No one is ever happy with change and the movement in what a society has room for. Things change, not always for the better.
September 4, 2024
So disappointed in this book. There isn't much in the way of analysis imo, you'd think there would be more socio-economic discussion (decline of industry for example and what would replace in a newly risen North) and instead it just feels like a certain type of measuring contest from the author about who knows the most poets/writers/artists.
There isn't a coherent structure to the chapters either and feels like it jumps around.
There isn't a coherent structure to the chapters either and feels like it jumps around.
October 14, 2025
I probably went into this one with expectations that were too high, enjoying as I did the mixture of memoir and invective in New Model Island. This one, though, strays so far from reasonable critique it's a joke.
When reflecting on the actual 'futures' this book presents, you come up with remarkably little. Not only is Niven preternaturally focused on Newcastle (which I'm prepared to accept), he remains, until almost the very end, unstoppably cynical. Not a single mention in this book of any possible futures that are actually being worked on, in political or activist circles. If you want to argue for hope, show me where that hope is! It isn't in the Northern Independence Party!!!
Particularly galling is Niven's occasional reference to how the UK could be institutionally rearranged, which he delivers with no evidence or qualification for his ideas. I think the book should have stuck to being a memoir, instead of claiming some aspiration to political nous that it fails to see through. Makes me angrier the more I think about it.
When reflecting on the actual 'futures' this book presents, you come up with remarkably little. Not only is Niven preternaturally focused on Newcastle (which I'm prepared to accept), he remains, until almost the very end, unstoppably cynical. Not a single mention in this book of any possible futures that are actually being worked on, in political or activist circles. If you want to argue for hope, show me where that hope is! It isn't in the Northern Independence Party!!!
Particularly galling is Niven's occasional reference to how the UK could be institutionally rearranged, which he delivers with no evidence or qualification for his ideas. I think the book should have stuck to being a memoir, instead of claiming some aspiration to political nous that it fails to see through. Makes me angrier the more I think about it.
February 6, 2025
Really liked the focus on the North East and it's music so many things I would never have known about otherwise. Especially read it because of the authors everything everything links v cool to know the Hexham origins. Did seem a bit like the author was a little complainy though
September 2, 2023
A little disappointing.
Perhaps I was hoping for a conclusive decision. To be fair, a very thorough review of the failures of the past, and how not to do it...
Perhaps I was hoping for a conclusive decision. To be fair, a very thorough review of the failures of the past, and how not to do it...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 7, 2024
Clearly preparing myself for a hopeful move homeward later this year
March 26, 2024
A little random a little self indulgent
July 16, 2025
surprised others found this hard to get through. giving it 4 stars as I struggled with the structure a little, but also think this was the structure that makes the most sense, just maybe not for me
April 30, 2024
I don't think the title does this any favours. I imagine most people who pick this up will be expecting a forward-looking and optimistic read, but those aspects of the book appear rarely, and mostly in the last 30 pages. This is essentially a trip through 20th Century Northern cultural history, with some personal memoir as an occasional foil. It reads a bit like a dissertation, and the subject matter is usually pretty high brow: modernist poetry, civic architecture, local government (there was some stuff on Factory Records, alcoholism and Roxy music that was more on my level).
My initial enthusiasm waned pretty quickly; I wasn't really anticipating how academic it would be, wasn't expecting it to be so focused on the past, and I definitely wasn't expecting it to be so frequently defeatist in tone. Writing about the North being an economic-other to the South will inevitably require discussing poverty, and failed socio-policial movements, and decline, but so much time was dedicated to this disadvantaged image of the North that - to me - it didn't really serve a book which seems in every way designed to attract a readership of people looking for something optimistic.
Nevertheless, I really admire Niven and his project. He does a great job of uncovering a complex, counter narrative to the usual Beatles ‘n’ Joy Division story; and more than that, his central thesis is invaluable: The North needs to come to terms with its status as a perpetual also-ran in the current constitutional system; the North will not be given consideration by a political class educated and raised in the Home Counties, and engaging with instead of ignoring this reality points towards an improved future.
Towards the end of the book, I got what I was hoping for when I initially started reading, being an optimstic vision for the future, Acid Northumbria:
"The acid Northumbrian approach could also act as a means of imagining concrete social and political structures outside of the psychic prison of ancient England. The Factory project, for instance... 50/50 record contracts written in blood, elaborate artwork which subverted the clichés of consumer capitalism, a world-famous nightclub which didn’t make any money and so on. Whilst these strategies have sometimes been viewed as little more than postmodern high jinks, the underlying intention was always to foster a strong infrastructure for cultural production outside of London’s imperious music industry establishment... For Factory, and for the whole of what I have been calling the acid Northumbrian tendency, broadly conceived, the implicit argument was that northern people should have the right to remain where they were, and yet still access the freeing energies of other psychological realms. But more deeply, and concretely, it also came along with a suggestion that escapist fantasies – and a related ethic of subversive, anarchic playfulness – were the means by which such freedoms might be practically achieved, rather than acting as mere frivolous hippy distractions."
This kind of magic-psychedelic thinking might make some eyes roll, but it is a useful and exciting reimagining, one which takes an admirable stab at realising the advocations of Frederic Jameson, in his introduction to Postmodernism:
"An aesthetic of cognitive mapping—a pedagogical political culture which seeks to endow the individual subject with some new heightened sense of its place in the global system—will necessarily have to respect this now enormously complex representational dialectic and to invent radically new forms in order to do it justice. This is not, then, clearly a call for a return to some older kind of machinery, some older and more transparent national space, or some more traditional and reassuring perspectival or mimetic enclave: the new political art—if it is indeed possible at all—will have to hold to the truth of postmodernism, that is, to say, to its fundamental object—the world space of multinational capital—at the same time at which it achieves a breakthrough to some
as yet unimaginable new mode of representing this last, in which we may again begin to grasp our positioning as individual and collective subjects and regain a capacity to act and struggle which is at present neutralized by our spatial as well as our social confusion. The political form of postmodernism, if there ever is any, will have as its vocation the invention and projection of a global cognitive mapping, on a social as well as a spatial scale."
My initial enthusiasm waned pretty quickly; I wasn't really anticipating how academic it would be, wasn't expecting it to be so focused on the past, and I definitely wasn't expecting it to be so frequently defeatist in tone. Writing about the North being an economic-other to the South will inevitably require discussing poverty, and failed socio-policial movements, and decline, but so much time was dedicated to this disadvantaged image of the North that - to me - it didn't really serve a book which seems in every way designed to attract a readership of people looking for something optimistic.
Nevertheless, I really admire Niven and his project. He does a great job of uncovering a complex, counter narrative to the usual Beatles ‘n’ Joy Division story; and more than that, his central thesis is invaluable: The North needs to come to terms with its status as a perpetual also-ran in the current constitutional system; the North will not be given consideration by a political class educated and raised in the Home Counties, and engaging with instead of ignoring this reality points towards an improved future.
Towards the end of the book, I got what I was hoping for when I initially started reading, being an optimstic vision for the future, Acid Northumbria:
"The acid Northumbrian approach could also act as a means of imagining concrete social and political structures outside of the psychic prison of ancient England. The Factory project, for instance... 50/50 record contracts written in blood, elaborate artwork which subverted the clichés of consumer capitalism, a world-famous nightclub which didn’t make any money and so on. Whilst these strategies have sometimes been viewed as little more than postmodern high jinks, the underlying intention was always to foster a strong infrastructure for cultural production outside of London’s imperious music industry establishment... For Factory, and for the whole of what I have been calling the acid Northumbrian tendency, broadly conceived, the implicit argument was that northern people should have the right to remain where they were, and yet still access the freeing energies of other psychological realms. But more deeply, and concretely, it also came along with a suggestion that escapist fantasies – and a related ethic of subversive, anarchic playfulness – were the means by which such freedoms might be practically achieved, rather than acting as mere frivolous hippy distractions."
This kind of magic-psychedelic thinking might make some eyes roll, but it is a useful and exciting reimagining, one which takes an admirable stab at realising the advocations of Frederic Jameson, in his introduction to Postmodernism:
"An aesthetic of cognitive mapping—a pedagogical political culture which seeks to endow the individual subject with some new heightened sense of its place in the global system—will necessarily have to respect this now enormously complex representational dialectic and to invent radically new forms in order to do it justice. This is not, then, clearly a call for a return to some older kind of machinery, some older and more transparent national space, or some more traditional and reassuring perspectival or mimetic enclave: the new political art—if it is indeed possible at all—will have to hold to the truth of postmodernism, that is, to say, to its fundamental object—the world space of multinational capital—at the same time at which it achieves a breakthrough to some
as yet unimaginable new mode of representing this last, in which we may again begin to grasp our positioning as individual and collective subjects and regain a capacity to act and struggle which is at present neutralized by our spatial as well as our social confusion. The political form of postmodernism, if there ever is any, will have as its vocation the invention and projection of a global cognitive mapping, on a social as well as a spatial scale."
Read
January 21, 2024Niven has a couple of real blockages in his writing style. One, is his sentences seem to meander and bury their subject matter, making it a slog. But given his styling as a left wing commentator his bigger issue is that he does not seem to understand that he assumes his way of thinking is de-facto but it is not, so it all feels a bit didactic and narrow-interest. For instance, Corbyn is touted as exemplary and anything right of him to Niven might as well be Tories. There is an ongoing sneering tone at anyone who doesn't agree with his worldview. In many ways, Niven exemplifies what's kept the left out of power for so long and the prevailing issue the left has. Sneering at anyone who isn't his precise version of the left works all too well for the right, and ensures the right continues to succeed. I suspect this suits the likes of Niven, who'd rather feel they had some superiority than actually have something more leftwing than the Tories in power. Niven would doubtless dismiss this as this opinion 'not getting it' but that returns to the dismissive sneering that runs through the tone of this book. As a writer, he needs to bring people on board; too much of this is done on his terms.
February 10, 2025
This book seems to attract three types of readers: Northerners who have seen their home’s decline, those who left but remain nostalgic, and Southerners intrigued by Northern character. Like Niven, I fall into the second category, having lived in the South before returning. While I relate to his perspective, I struggle with the book’s overall purpose.
Niven’s cultural assertions often feel speculative, particularly his claim that Northern influence shaped migratory artists without offering solid proof. His praise for the failed postmodernist movement in Newcastle is misguided, and his personal anecdotes—about woodland adventures, Metroland trips, and his 90s music tastes—lack broader relevance. The book promises a hopeful vision but indulges in personal detours instead.
This could have been a concise essay. Only in the final chapter does Niven attempt to present solutions—ones I mostly disagree with, but at least they engage with the future of the North in a meaningful way.
Read the full review HERE
Niven’s cultural assertions often feel speculative, particularly his claim that Northern influence shaped migratory artists without offering solid proof. His praise for the failed postmodernist movement in Newcastle is misguided, and his personal anecdotes—about woodland adventures, Metroland trips, and his 90s music tastes—lack broader relevance. The book promises a hopeful vision but indulges in personal detours instead.
This could have been a concise essay. Only in the final chapter does Niven attempt to present solutions—ones I mostly disagree with, but at least they engage with the future of the North in a meaningful way.
Read the full review HERE
April 3, 2025
A good read and look into the cultural, social and political landscape of Northern England and the declines and deindustrialisation it has suffered (as well as the failures of both major political parties to reconstitute a purpose and way forward for Northern England)
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