Distilling the Frenzy: Writing the History of One’s Own Times

Britain’s leading contemporary historian revisits and exounds upon the grand themes that have run throughout twentieth and twenty first century Britain, including the abiding trends of the postwar era - Britain’s persistent impulse to punch well above its weight in the world; the sustenance of a nuclear weapons policy which has accompanied that impulse and the secrecy that has too often concealed it; the contrasting styles and achievements of post-war prime ministers from Attlee to Cameron; the successes and failures of major constitutional reform. As importantly, in Distilling the Frenzy a genuine heavyweight of British scholarship lays bear the contemporary historian’s art for all to see, exposing the fine line between observation and felt experience, whilst incorporating elements of autobiography that gives the book a poignancy thaat is lacking in other grand historial works. This is the story of Britain’s century through the eyes of it’s most celebrated chronicler. A major work of our time.