Accelerate!: A History of the 1990s

by James Brooke-Smith, Jack Smyth

A kaleidoscopic history of the 1990s, a decade of fin-de-siècle hope and exuberance – plus the events, ideas and people who made and broke it

The 1990s was the decade in which the Soviet Union collapsed and Francis Fukuyama declared the “end of history.” Nelson Mandela was released from prison, Google was launched and scientists in Edinburgh cloned a sheep from a single cell. It was also a time in which the President of the United States discussed fellatio on network television and the world’s most photographed woman died in a car crash in Paris. The radical pop band the KLF burned a million quid on a Scottish island, while the most-watched program on TV was Baywatch . Anti-globalization protestors in France attacked McDonalds restaurants, while American survivalists stockpiled guns and tinned food in preparation for Y2K. For those who lived through it, the 1990s glow in the memory with a beguiling mixture of proximity and distance, familiarity and strangeness. It is the decade about which we know so much yet understand too little. Taking a kaleidoscopic view of the politics, social history, arts and popular culture of the era, James Brooke-Smith asks – what was the 1990s? A lost golden age of liberal optimism? A time of fin de siècle decadence? Or the seedbed for the discontents we face today?

Genres: History, Nonfiction

304 pages, Hardcover

Published May 2, 2023

Reviews

[Mafalda Cardeira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice book. It was interesting to understand the war in Kuwait and the path to Iraq. I was very young at the time and it was enlightening.
However, other references I don’t have because I am Portuguese. Still, some of them that was a reference for my family, gave me the opportunity to see some movies that I did not know.
Easy to read. Very nice.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I fully expected this one to be much different than it actually ended up being, but in a very good way. Brooke-Smith's definition of the 90s is interesting, focussing on a deeper level into the inconsistencies of the decade (such as how we now feel nostalgia for an era that was defined by nostalgia of other eras...), as well as its more endearing aspects.

[Fede · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title is misleading: this is not a history of the 90s but rather an essay ON the 90s, or rather on different topics (rave culture, gaming, Clinton's and Blair's Third Way politics, Young British Artists, dot-com bubble, Millenium Bug, apocalyptic cults etc) that, taken together, give the reader an obviously incomplete but interesting picture of what it was like to be there at the time. If you are old enough to remember the 90s, this is going to be a good trip down memory lane. If you aren't, it'll probably make you curious to find out what some of these things really were about.

As for me, the part about the Baywatch opening theme brought me back to my own private 90s in a split second.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a nice overview of pop culture during the 90's. It's a bit US/UK centered, but it covers a good range of topics: there's the first Iraq war, rave culture, the art scene, apocalyptic cults, Princess Di, the Internet starting to loom over everything. All in all, an interesting read.

[Heather G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huh

A different take and a different subject than I thought it would be but still very well written. It wasn't dry at all.

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books of this year and maybe even every- written so well providing a wider view on the 1990s

[Isaac Hawcock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable! But maybe didn’t update any of my intuitions/thought I’d heard the broader points before, although details were new

[Mark West · Rating 5 out of 5]

Better than the Klosterman! More of a British focus, and more attuned to the deeper, wider historical trends that 90s phenomena were connected to.