Events, Dear Boy, Events: A Political Diary of Britain 1921 to 2010

Description

Ruth Winstone retells Britain's history through the great diarists of the last century, drawing back the curtain on the lives of political classes, their doubts, ambitions, and emotions. She moves deftly among those in the thick of it, showing the elation, anger, doubts, jealousy, joys and fears of people as they record their own and the nation's triumphs and disasters. To this potent mix she adds the mordant perceptions of observers like Virginia Woolf, Cecil Beaton, Peter Hall and Roy Strong, and the vivid records of everyday life found in the diaries of otherwise ordinary men and women. Events, Dear Boy, Events reveals Britain's recent past in the words of the actors who were shaping the events of the day. This is living real-time history.

Ruth Winstone is the editor of Chris Mullin's trilogy of diaries covering British political life 1994-2010 and of Tony Benn's written and taped records. For many years she worked as a senior clerk in the library of the House of Commons. Diaries of Harold Nicholson, Duff Cooper, Chips Channon, Harold Macmillan, Barbara Castle, Alan Clark, Tony Benn, Alistair Campbell, Chris Mullin and Paddy Ashdown are included.

A fascinating new anthology ... shows it is even possible to write a history of the past hundred years through snippets from diaries. But the genre is far older than that. The template was created by Samuel Pepys in the 1660s, though it was not until the 19th century that anyone cracked the code of his shorthand and discovered the glory of it -- Matthew Engel * Financial Times * Diaries are the most intimate historical source, and Ruth Winstone has brilliantly welded together the best of them into a compellingly seductive narrative ... Political history has never been so palatable -- David Kynaston This collection is a delight from beginning to end. There's a gem on almost every page. Such a volume is a great idea, hugely enhanced by Ruth Winstone's brilliant eye -- Peter Hennessy Ruth Winstone's edited volume of diary entries provides a fascinating and original series of insights into modern Britain, spanning the years from Lloyd George's coalition of 1918 to that of 2012. Its miscellany of vignettes, drawn from intellectuals and figures from the arts as well as politicians, illuminates vividly the pieces from which the mosaic of British twentieth-century history was constructed -- Kenneth O Morgan A vivid and vital chronicle of our recent political past, culled from the pages of Britain's greatest twentieth-century diarists, who were there at the time and saw history happen. It is an enthralling read, full of old friends and new acquaintances, and there is no other book like it! -- David Cannadine A great Christmas gift * Bookseller * Fascinating -- Matthew Engel * Financial Times * A bright idea -- Simon Hoggart * Guardian * Dipping into Events, Dear Boy, Events and matching one's own recollections of an "Event", especially one in which one was a participant, with those of bystanders at the same event is an almost surreal experience. Perhaps the greatest value of the book is not what it tells readers about the "Events" but what it tells about those who witnessed and wrote about them. * Lord Tebbit *