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Rule, Nostalgia

byHannah Rose Woods, Hannah Rose Woods (Read by)

A Backwards History of Britain

Brought to you by Penguin.

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


For hundreds of years, the British have mourned the loss of older national identities, and called for a revival of the 'good old days' - from Margaret Thatcher's desire 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.

Beginning in the present, cultural historian Hannah Rose Woods travels backwards on an eye-opening tour through six centuries of Britain's perennial fixation with its own past, 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 dangerous and pervasive myths about Britain's past, and explores the ways in which nostalgia has historically been mobilised in Britain across the political spectrum, from the radical left to the nationalist right, for both good and for ill.

Rule, Nostalgia is a timely and illuminating interrogation of national character, emotion, identity and myth making that will help us to understand Britain: past, present and future.

© Hannah Rose Woods 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Indispensible and fascinating

The Guardian (A 2022 Book of the Year)

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
Details
  • Imprint: Virgin Digital
  • ISBN: 9780753559451
  • Length: 653 minutes
  • Price: £13.00
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