Comments by Michael Calum Jacques, author of '1st Century Radical'.
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Peter John Hennessy, from an Irish Catholic family background in London, was born 28 March 1947 and is an English 'governmental' historian. He has been Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History at Queen Mary, University of London since 1992 and is also a Fellow of the British Academy.
He has written many books which do, as the previous reviewer has rightly pointed out, tend to include a preponderance upon the official, governmental machine. This reviewer would suggest that works like Cabinet (1986), The Hidden Wiring: Unearthing the British Constitution (1995) and The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War (2002) should be included amongst any list of his better works.
Now some readers will undoubtedly find this one a little dry; but it does not purport to supply a 'popular' history and clearly it is not. What it does offer is a type of 'official', behind the scenes view which can sometimes help to 'fill out' and underpin the more topical 'general' (and some would say 'relevant' here) histories. Ultimately, this is a matter which only the reader can decide, but the book should only be purchased with that in mind. Within its limitations, this reviewer found it to be an interesting read, quite well chronicled, if a little arid and bereft of the spark of 'High Street' reality in parts.
Michael Calum Jacques (author of 1st Century Radical: the shadowy origins of the man who became known as Jesus Christ)
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Not a social history
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This is not a social history of Britain. It is an elitist study of the period concentrating on history from the viewpoint of the senior politicians who made the key decisions at this time. It is very London, Downing Street, Westminster, Whitehall dominated and ignores the rest of the population. There is a large amount of quotations from the diaries, autobiographies or books of politicians. If these were left out it would reduce the book's content by about 1/3 and make it far more readable.
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