The seventies: Britain's inward march

by Norman Shrapnel

267 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1980

Reviews

[Ade · Rating 2 out of 5]

A whistle-stop tour of the major events and themes of the 1970s in Britain, unfortunately marred by endless prevarications over the views of both sides on any debate being discussed. Shrapnel seems to have been more preoccupied with coining neat turns of phrase to summarise and effectively dismiss every argument than undertaking any useful analysis or providing extra detail. Perhaps it suffers from being written in 1980, too close to the decade (and too early into the Thatcherite 80s) to reach many conclusions. As a concise contemporary guide to the period, it's just about worth your while; extraordinary to consider those issues that are still with us today, of even more pressing urgency (e.g. the environment) and those that appeared to loom large but quickly became forgotten or irrelevant next to the upheavals of the times that came after.