Author:John O'Farrell
Following his hugely popular account of the previous 2000 years, John O'Farrell now comes bang up to date with a hilarious modern history asking 'How the hell did we end up here?'
An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain informs, elucidates and laughs at all the bizarre events, ridiculous characters and stupid decisions that have shaped Britain's story since 1945; leaving the Twenty-First Century reader feeling fantastically smug for having the benefit of hindsight.
An astonishing and almost infinitely provocative work ... it is a rare pleasure to be among those engaged in the salvage of so rich a treasure
—— John Burnside , Irish TimesOne of the most remarkable non-fiction projects undertaken in English
—— Robert Macfarlane , SpectatorA masterpiece of travel and topographical writing and a miraculous, vivid and engrossing meditation on landscape and history and the sacred mood of places
—— Colm Tóibín , Irish Times Books of the YearReading Tim Robinson on Connemara is almost as good as being there - better in some ways
—— Irish ExaminerAn imperishable monument to the West
—— Irish IndependentSarah Wise is too clever and considered a historian simply to give us a lurid, one-dimensional Victorian melodrama. Through painstaking archival work and readable empathetic prose, she has instead sought to evoke the texture of life here
—— Daily TelegraphThe account is both moving and engrossing, and its tendency in places to become a litany of misery and despair is redeemed by Sarah Wise's light and occasionally humorous touch
—— Literary ReviewAs with her previous book The Italian Boy, Sarah Wise is superb on statistical detail... In every respect this is a note-perfect work of social history, thoroughly researched, charitable in its sympathies, and sadly still embodying lessons for today
—— IndependentCarefully researched... a wide-ranging study
—— Sunday TelegraphHer achievement is remarkable... This engrossing work shines a light not only on a turbulent period in London's history, but on humanity itself. Only the best histories can claim as much
—— GuardianSpilling facts, lives, conditions, intolerable burdens and the spirit expressed by spontaneous dancing in the streets, The Blackest Streets is a little masterpiece
—— HeraldExtraordinary scholarship and rare sensitivity
—— Ophelia Field , Daily TelegraphSarah Wise mines the archives to bring the local inhabitants back to life, and makes particularly brilliant use of the interviews that historian Raphael Samuel conducted in the 1970s with Arthur Harding.
—— LRBAs in her wonderful book The Italian Boy, she explores a milieu that was hungry, dirty, threadbare and exploited
—— Christopher Hirst , The IndependentSarah Wise animates the horrors in fascinating detail
—— Toby Clements , The Telegraph