Product Description

A journey into the future of Britain that accompanies the three part BBC TV Saturday evening prime time documentary of the same name.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3011026 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 228 pages

Review
With the same relaxed but informed voice that made Ruling Brittannia such a success Anthony Marr has attempted an anatomy of Britain and 'Britishness'. In the spirit of JB Priestley and George Orwell, he embarked on a country-wide tour hoping to catch the elusive butterfly of national identity in the net of his acute journalism. The result is eminently readable and honest - where Orwell had the agenda of social injustice Marr issues disclaimers about being a watchful bystander. He talks about his own idenity as a Scottish Londoner who received a very English education, belonging to a generation for whom 'Hornblower was past, but Dan Dare was still to come.' His topics range from Brit-art to a watery-eyed nostalgia for the golden age of cricket that commentators were hankering after in Punch, in the nineteenth century. Talking to all sorts of Britons including inner-city Bangladeshis, eco-warriors and farmers teetering on the edge of bankruptcy Marr builds up a mosiac of opinions and asks the question: what happened to our collective sense of identity? And, if Britain has died why didn't anyone hear the dead mans rattle? (Kirkus UK)