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A Shellshocked Nation: Britain Between the Wars
'Britain in the 1920s and 1930s pops to life in this often very witty chronicle of that jittery time' The Times
'Alwyn Turner is the master of funny, engaging social history' Sunday Times
After the calamity of the Great War, there was a desire in Britain for escapist fun - the lights of the Jazz Age, radio comedies and the pictures were a welcome respite from the grim reality of the Great Depression. Yet the storm clouds were gathering, and Britain between the wars was a turbulent, restless place - and where the foundations of the modern nation were laid.
Combining cultural, social and political history, A Shellshocked Nation is the next instalment in Alwyn Turner's highly original history of the twentieth century, sketching a portrait of the interwar nation through its entertainments and scandals, its people and political crises. From the General Strike to the BBC, Irish Home Rule and the rise of fascism, this is the definitive story of Britain's most anxious era.
'Alwyn Turner is the master of funny, engaging social history' Sunday Times
After the calamity of the Great War, there was a desire in Britain for escapist fun - the lights of the Jazz Age, radio comedies and the pictures were a welcome respite from the grim reality of the Great Depression. Yet the storm clouds were gathering, and Britain between the wars was a turbulent, restless place - and where the foundations of the modern nation were laid.
Combining cultural, social and political history, A Shellshocked Nation is the next instalment in Alwyn Turner's highly original history of the twentieth century, sketching a portrait of the interwar nation through its entertainments and scandals, its people and political crises. From the General Strike to the BBC, Irish Home Rule and the rise of fascism, this is the definitive story of Britain's most anxious era.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
384 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 22, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 27, 2026
I’m an elderly and rather anxious chap, much given to lying awake at night worrying about what social media and AI are doing to the human race, and quite possibly with good reason. It never hurts, though, to be reminded that there is actually nothing new under the sun, least of all the conviction that the world is going to hell in a technological handcart. In 1913, for instance, The Times declared that cinema was subjecting children to ‘terrific massacres, horrible catastrophes, motor-car smashes, public hangings, lynchings….All who care for the moral well-being and education of the child will set their faces like flint against this new form of excitement’. A little history does sometimes help to put the present in perspective.
A Shellshocked Nation concerns itself with Britain between the wars and covers social history, politics and popular culture. This is a tad overambitious in a text of 317 pages (plus references etc.) and, as a result, major events are hurtled through at lightning speed. The Irish War of Independence, the General Strike of 1926, the Great Depression, the hunger marches of the 1930s and the Munich Agreement, are all summarily dispatched in a matter of a few pages each. This kind of history on fast-forward adds little to the sum of knowledge. I couldn’t help thinking of Woody Allen once saying that he had taken a speed-reading course which enabled him to read War and Peace in twenty minutes: ‘It’s about Russia’.
The book is at its best, and most expansive, when dealing with popular culture. Turner is so entertaining and insightful on how popular culture relates to and illuminates its era that it’s a pity he didn’t skip the politics entirely. Still, there is plenty to be going on with here: the rise of cinema; a revival of interest in spiritualism, the occult and Arthurian legends as religious belief declined; children’s literature of the ‘20s with its evocation of a lost Eden before the slaughter of the First World War; the early years of the BBC; the detective fiction boom; the delayed popularity of war literature after ten years of ‘cultural silence’ on the subject (plenty of war poetry was being published before this, but hardly anyone wanted to read it, the horrors still being too fresh in the collective memory); the return, during the dark days of the ‘30s with dictators abroad and hardship at home, of Victorian melodrama with its reassuring moral certainties, and participatory music hall style entertainment with a strong sense of community spirit; George Formby and Gracie Fields, jazz and dance bands, Butlins holiday camps and Mills and Boon romances.
Turner’s view of British society at this time struck me as a bit rose-tinted. The pervading impression is of a contented and stable land of freedom lovers united by an irreverent sense of humour and a passion for doing funny dances like The Lambeth Walk. Although this rosy portrait contains a germ of truth, certainly in comparison to what was happening elsewhere on the continent, it was also a period of extreme deprivation for millions and a good deal of internal conflict, all of which Turner tends to underplay. He is undoubtedly correct, however, that Britain between the wars was an essentially conservative society both culturally and politically. Exciting avant-garde artistic movements were happening on the European mainland: Dada, Surrealism, Futurism, Constructivism, twelve-tone serialism. Britain didn’t really go in for this sort of thing. It would be facetious and misleading of me to say we had George Formby and the Henry Hall Orchestra instead, but not that facetious or misleading.
Britain’s innate conservatism did mean that fascism and communism never really caught on beyond the intelligentsia. The leading candidate for the position of Great Fascist Dictator in Britain was the absurd Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, also known as the Blackshirts. P. G. Wodehouse parodied him as Roderick Spode, 7th Earl of Sidcup, the leader of the Saviours of Britain, or the Black Shorts (‘there were no shirts left’.). Mosley’s antisemitic thugs were a genuine menace on the streets, but his party only briefly posed an electoral threat. Part of the reason, as Turner suggests, was Sir Oswald himself. There is a full-page photograph of him in the book. He looks, entirely typically, more comic than menacing: a ham actor pretending to be Hitler.
A Shellshocked Nation concerns itself with Britain between the wars and covers social history, politics and popular culture. This is a tad overambitious in a text of 317 pages (plus references etc.) and, as a result, major events are hurtled through at lightning speed. The Irish War of Independence, the General Strike of 1926, the Great Depression, the hunger marches of the 1930s and the Munich Agreement, are all summarily dispatched in a matter of a few pages each. This kind of history on fast-forward adds little to the sum of knowledge. I couldn’t help thinking of Woody Allen once saying that he had taken a speed-reading course which enabled him to read War and Peace in twenty minutes: ‘It’s about Russia’.
The book is at its best, and most expansive, when dealing with popular culture. Turner is so entertaining and insightful on how popular culture relates to and illuminates its era that it’s a pity he didn’t skip the politics entirely. Still, there is plenty to be going on with here: the rise of cinema; a revival of interest in spiritualism, the occult and Arthurian legends as religious belief declined; children’s literature of the ‘20s with its evocation of a lost Eden before the slaughter of the First World War; the early years of the BBC; the detective fiction boom; the delayed popularity of war literature after ten years of ‘cultural silence’ on the subject (plenty of war poetry was being published before this, but hardly anyone wanted to read it, the horrors still being too fresh in the collective memory); the return, during the dark days of the ‘30s with dictators abroad and hardship at home, of Victorian melodrama with its reassuring moral certainties, and participatory music hall style entertainment with a strong sense of community spirit; George Formby and Gracie Fields, jazz and dance bands, Butlins holiday camps and Mills and Boon romances.
Turner’s view of British society at this time struck me as a bit rose-tinted. The pervading impression is of a contented and stable land of freedom lovers united by an irreverent sense of humour and a passion for doing funny dances like The Lambeth Walk. Although this rosy portrait contains a germ of truth, certainly in comparison to what was happening elsewhere on the continent, it was also a period of extreme deprivation for millions and a good deal of internal conflict, all of which Turner tends to underplay. He is undoubtedly correct, however, that Britain between the wars was an essentially conservative society both culturally and politically. Exciting avant-garde artistic movements were happening on the European mainland: Dada, Surrealism, Futurism, Constructivism, twelve-tone serialism. Britain didn’t really go in for this sort of thing. It would be facetious and misleading of me to say we had George Formby and the Henry Hall Orchestra instead, but not that facetious or misleading.
Britain’s innate conservatism did mean that fascism and communism never really caught on beyond the intelligentsia. The leading candidate for the position of Great Fascist Dictator in Britain was the absurd Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, also known as the Blackshirts. P. G. Wodehouse parodied him as Roderick Spode, 7th Earl of Sidcup, the leader of the Saviours of Britain, or the Black Shorts (‘there were no shirts left’.). Mosley’s antisemitic thugs were a genuine menace on the streets, but his party only briefly posed an electoral threat. Part of the reason, as Turner suggests, was Sir Oswald himself. There is a full-page photograph of him in the book. He looks, entirely typically, more comic than menacing: a ham actor pretending to be Hitler.
May 25, 2026
Another excellent book by this author
April 26, 2026
Who came first - Dominic Sandbrook or Alwyn Turner?
I have read all the of the DS books - waiting patiently for the promised 1980s one - and decided to give AT a go, who writes in a similar, let less comprehensive manner.
The politics of the time period is interspersed with the culture and lives of the ordinary man. This book covering the period between the first and second world wars. An appendix details all the books and films that we used for inspiration - yet apart from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (already on my TBR pile) I came away with no other future inspiration. I usually have pages from DS - but to be fair, his books cover a time period I have far more interest in.
Easy and entertaining reading - I will come back for one of AT's later period book to do a better comparison of British Social history writers.
I have read all the of the DS books - waiting patiently for the promised 1980s one - and decided to give AT a go, who writes in a similar, let less comprehensive manner.
The politics of the time period is interspersed with the culture and lives of the ordinary man. This book covering the period between the first and second world wars. An appendix details all the books and films that we used for inspiration - yet apart from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (already on my TBR pile) I came away with no other future inspiration. I usually have pages from DS - but to be fair, his books cover a time period I have far more interest in.
Easy and entertaining reading - I will come back for one of AT's later period book to do a better comparison of British Social history writers.
April 8, 2026
A enjoyable read that gives you a good look into Britain's inter-war period! It covers a lot of ground and was very good for someone not overly familiar with the period.
The only negative that I have is that it's not chronological, it's more of a general temperature take so to speak of the period rather than a play-by-play analysis, but overall it's definitely worth a read!
The only negative that I have is that it's not chronological, it's more of a general temperature take so to speak of the period rather than a play-by-play analysis, but overall it's definitely worth a read!
March 30, 2026
Another excellent appreciation of an era from Alwyn Turner. As usual, he weaves together political commentary, stories from the media, arts and popular culture to give us an insightful glimpse into the Britain of the 1920s and 30s. It’s a shame my parents aren’t still alive as I would have liked to ask them for their recollections of ITMA, Gracie Fields and the ‘talkies’.
March 8, 2026
Book borrowed from Stirling Library
384 pages
I borrowed the book following a positive review in a UK broadsheet newspaper
The Book is a potted Social History of Britain between the two World Wars
Verdict
Unfortunately the book is interminably dull,major events are dealt with in a few paragraphs,much is written on long forgotten entertainers of yesteryear( George Formby, Dance Band Leader Henry Hall etc),it lacks depth or substance and for me does not capture the day to day lives of of the generation who lived between the wars
I am in my late sixties and had hoped for more to enlighten men about my grandparents generation,the struggles they faced, the entertainment they enjoyed ,though to some extent covered in the book ie with adventure of holiday camps it is written in a detached way and is more concerned with facts rather than making that time period come alive, a few anecdotes, stories from that generation would have been welcomed
A disappointing read.
384 pages
I borrowed the book following a positive review in a UK broadsheet newspaper
The Book is a potted Social History of Britain between the two World Wars
Verdict
Unfortunately the book is interminably dull,major events are dealt with in a few paragraphs,much is written on long forgotten entertainers of yesteryear( George Formby, Dance Band Leader Henry Hall etc),it lacks depth or substance and for me does not capture the day to day lives of of the generation who lived between the wars
I am in my late sixties and had hoped for more to enlighten men about my grandparents generation,the struggles they faced, the entertainment they enjoyed ,though to some extent covered in the book ie with adventure of holiday camps it is written in a detached way and is more concerned with facts rather than making that time period come alive, a few anecdotes, stories from that generation would have been welcomed
A disappointing read.
February 12, 2026
A rather wonderful book that captures the spirit of a nation both at ease with itself at the end of the First World War and increasingly out of touch with a modern world as a second one approached.
It tells a story of a Britain comfortable with the being British, proud of values including the ability to laugh at ourselves and effectively immune from the extremism that others (maybe more impacted by the earlier war) had experienced.
Turner's epigraph before his epilogue perhaps captures the spirit of his book best:
"Perhaps we can that England as a whole, though
suffering vast changes, have survived more recognisably than
any other country. She is more than the ghost of her former
self - she has a good deal still left of the substance."
If that capture the spirit of the book then the journey to arrive at that point is well worth it. Highly recommended.
It tells a story of a Britain comfortable with the being British, proud of values including the ability to laugh at ourselves and effectively immune from the extremism that others (maybe more impacted by the earlier war) had experienced.
Turner's epigraph before his epilogue perhaps captures the spirit of his book best:
"Perhaps we can that England as a whole, though
suffering vast changes, have survived more recognisably than
any other country. She is more than the ghost of her former
self - she has a good deal still left of the substance."
If that capture the spirit of the book then the journey to arrive at that point is well worth it. Highly recommended.
March 26, 2026
I've enjoyed previous historical books by Alwyn Turner - "Rejoice" is excellent - but this one failed to grab me. I'm just not interested enough in the period covered, neither the politics nor the cultural side of Britain at the time. Music hall? Ooh, where's me washboard? I was also annoyed at what seemed to me to be a straining to shoehorn modern day perspectives into a distant past. I mean, how important was the immigrant experience to Brits at the time? Perhaps the rise of feminism was studied in detail further on in the book but I never reached that point and was willing to bet that the author bent over backwards to underscore just how important and fundamental the "minority" contribution was to the times. But maybe that's me, just fed up in general with the way publishing seems to be skewed at the moment and sensitive to any "woke" agendas, whether they're evident or not.
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February 27, 2026How the reader reacts to the building’s well-known factors will determine their Shellshocked experience. This follows on with the reader enjoying the option of connecting Shellshocked elements to the present day. The British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) founding and Hollywood’s international cultural influence are two instances of those topical threads.
You can find my full Shellshocked Nation review at the link below.
https://thelensofhistory.substack.com...
You can find my full Shellshocked Nation review at the link below.
https://thelensofhistory.substack.com...
July 8, 2026
My parents grew up in the time this book describes. My Dad thought the 1924 Exhibition at Wembley the best thing he had ever seen and my grandfather actually managed the publicity for it. The amount of research the author has made is awe inspiring and I'm guessing that a whole second book could have been assembled out of the leftovers.
The Britain, minutely described, is conservative, tended to be backwards looking and generally stick in the mud. Which makes it all the more extraordinary that Britain responded so well (phlegmatically) to the Second World War
The Britain, minutely described, is conservative, tended to be backwards looking and generally stick in the mud. Which makes it all the more extraordinary that Britain responded so well (phlegmatically) to the Second World War
May 19, 2026
Agree with an earlier review by Sean. Not what I was expecting, the title is misleading as the majority of the book does not deal with ‘ A Shellshocked Nation’. Pushed to two stars as some of the book is well researched, interesting trivia.
March 1, 2026
The latest in an excellent series of books that really brings the past to life.
April 9, 2026
So what was Britain like between the wars? Well this book is a good introduction.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews