Time period: 1945-

In the heady days after 1945, the authority of the United States was unrivalled and, with the founding of the UN, a new era of international co-operation seemed to have begun. But seventy-five years later, its influence has already diminished. The world has now entered a post-American era, argues...

'The Crichel Boys' gives a voice to the fascinating people who passed through the doors of the much-admired country house and explains how, during the second half of the twentieth century, it became a hub of creativity and social activity for its denizens and their guests. Through the lens of Lon...

When the Queen ascended the throne in 1953 at the age of 25, Britain was a very different nation. In this vital history, Andrew Marr tells the story of modern Britain through the people who shaped it: from Sylvia Plath to Elvis Costello, Frank Critchlow to Bob Geldof, Zaha Hadid to James Dyson, D...

On Boxing Day 1962, when Juliet Nicolson was eight years old, the snow began to fall. It did not stop for ten weeks. It was one of the coldest and harshest winters for 300 years. The drifts in East Sussex reached twenty-three feet. In London, milkmen made deliveries on skis. On Dartmoor 2,000 pon...

On Boxing Day 1962, when Juliet Nicolson was eight years old, the snow began to fall. It did not stop for ten weeks. It was one of the coldest and harshest winters for 300 years. The drifts in East Sussex reached twenty-three feet. In London, milkmen made deliveries on skis. On Dartmoor 2,000 pon...

On Boxing Day 1962, when Juliet Nicolson was eight years old, the snow began to fall. It did not stop for ten weeks. It was one of the coldest and harshest winters for 300 years. The drifts in East Sussex reached twenty-three feet. In London, milkmen made deliveries on skis. On Dartmoor 2,000 pon...

Growing up in the 1970s, Rob Young's main storyteller was the wooden box with the glass window in the corner of the family living room, otherwise known as the TV set. Before the age of DVDs and Blu-ray discs, YouTube and commercial streaming services, watching television was a vastly different ex...

It was the spirit of our finest hour, the backbone of our post-war greatness, and it promoted some of the boldest and most brilliant schemes this isle has ever produced: it was the Welfare State, and it made you and I. But now it's under threat, and we need to save it. In this timely and provocat...

As the sun set slowly on the British Empire in the years after the Second World War, the nation's stately homes were in crisis. Tottering under the weight of rising taxes and a growing sense that they had no place in twentieth-century Britain, hundreds of ancestral piles were dismantled and demol...

Was Harold Wilson a bigger figure than Denis Healey? Was John Major more 'prime ministerial' than Michael Heseltine? What would Britain look like today if David Miliband had become Labour leader instead of his brother Ed? Would Jeremy Corbyn have done a better job of handling the COVID-19 pandemi...

Much-loved comedian Josh Widdicombe tells the story of a strange rural childhood, the kind of childhood he only realised was weird when he left home and started telling people about it. From only having four people in his year at school, to living in a family home where they didn't just not bothe...

When Mike Carter's father died, he decided to follow the route of a march against unemployment his dad had organised 35 years before. Mike had a troubled relationship with his dad, and hoped the walk, undertaken a month before the Brexit vote, would allow him to understand his father and his coun...

A magisterial and profoundly perceptive survey of Britain's post-war role on the global stage, from Suez to Brexit. In 1962, the US Secretary of State observed that post-war Britain had 'lost an empire and not yet found a role'. His gentle rebuke still rings true. Britain, clinging to its self-im...

When the Queen ascended the throne in 1953 at the age of 25, Britain was a very different nation. In this vital history, Andrew Marr tells the story of modern Britain through the people who shaped it: from Sylvia Plath to Elvis Costello, Frank Critchlow to Bob Geldof, Zaha Hadid to James Dyson, D...

When Colin Grant was growing up in Luton in the 1960s, he learned not to ask his Jamaican parents why they had emigrated to Britain. 'We're here because we're here', his father would say, 'You have some place else to go?'. But now, seventy years after the arrival of ships such as the Windrush, th...

It was the spirit of our finest hour, the backbone of our post-war greatness, and it promoted some of the boldest and most brilliant schemes this isle has ever produced: it was the Welfare State, and it made you and I. But now it's under threat, and we need to save it. In this timely and provocat...

The early 1980s were the most dramatic, colourful and controversial in our modern history. Margaret Thatcher had come to power with a daring plan to reverse Britain's decline into shabbiness and chaos. But as factories closed their doors, dole queues lengthened and the inner cities exploded in fl...

Offering a history of modern Britain since the late 1970s, author Andrew Hindmoor takes one particular day as a starting point, then goes on to describe its relevance and significance to modern British history.

In 'The Archipelago', Foot chronicles Italy's tumultuous history from the post-war to the present. He examines both the corrupt and celebrated sides of the country: from the silent assimilation of fascists into society after 1945 to the troubling reign of Silvio Berlusconi and from the artistic p...

The nineties was the decade when British culture reclaimed its position at the artistic centre of the world. Not since the 'Swinging Sixties' had art, comedy, fashion, film, football, literature and music interwoven into a blooming of national self-confidence. It was the decade of Lad Culture and...