Never Had It So Good

The first volume of Dominic Sandbrook's spectacular history of the Sixties is a chronicle of how the realisation of irreversible national decline hit the British after the Suez crisis... It is a tribute to Sandbrook's literary skill that his scholarship is never oppressive. Alternatively delightful and enlightening, he has produced a book which must have been an enormous labour to write but is a treat to read -- Nick Cohen * Observer *
This is a rich treasure-chest of a book... Sandbrook possesses enough verve and self-confidence to have produced an outstanding example of the genre... a tour de force -- Anthony Howard * Sunday Telegraph *
There is much to be enjoyed and admired here. Sandbrook writes lucidly and with brio... I find myself in awe of Sandbrook's apparent breadth and depth of reading, and his enthusiasm -- Sam Leith * Spectator *
Compelling ... a richly detailed and deeply atmospheric book -- Michael Bracewell * Telegraph *
Brilliant... with a novelist's skill, [Sandbrook] picks his way through the unfolding drama... As a popular, very readable history, this is a massive compendium of quiet, thoughtful information, occasionally punctuated with some very funny anecdotes -- Ray Connolly * Daily Mail *
Sandbrook has a winning style - not too flashy, but always ready with a killer observation. His judgements are cool and self-assured, his wry wit ever-present but unobtrusive. Above all, he moves effortlessly from the particular to the general and back again, dazzling the reader with peculiar but telling facts, offering tart vignettes of politicians and cultural standard bearers, and demonstrating the extraordinary range of his reading. You should read this remarkable history of a much misunderstood era for both its immense sweep and the piquancy of its detail -- Christopher Silvester * Sunday Express *
A wonderful book - a most accomplished, readable and convincing tour through seven years from Suez to Beatlemania. It is refreshing because it probes beneath the surface of events, dissolving many of the myths of the sixties and suggesting, quite rightly, that this was a period of uneven and gradual change rather than a revolution * Lawrence James *
A clever and engaging study of Britain as it prepared to swing into the sixties. Never Had It So Good is very good indeed * Amanda Foreman *
Refreshing and full of insight. Reading this book is effortless - rather like being pulled down a meandering river in a comfortable boat on a sunny day -- Gerard DeGroot * Scotland on Sunday *
Entertaining and always engaging, with a lovely narrative flow that carries the reader easily through its hundreds of pages -- Peter Hitchens * Mail on Sunday *
A masterpiece of diligence. And Sandbrook has distilled it into a sharp and fluent prose that swirls elegantly from episode to episode -- Robert Winder * New Statesman *
Brilliantly written... a great book for the general reader, and an ideal revision text for the bright undergraduate studying all of twentieth-century British history -- Arthur Marwick * History Today *
An astonishing range of material... immensely readable... a vivid picture of a nation at a time of unsettling and rapid change. There are bound to be many more books on the 1960s, but few will be as well structured, well written or intelligent as this -- Simon Heffer * Country Life *
Sandbrook's tour of this turn-of-the-decade is rich and fair... For the general public, he's done a favour: this is a book which does justice to complexity and to contradictions, and that's worth a lot of scholarly essays -- John Lloyd * Glasgow Herald *
A rivetingly readable debut ... What I shall cherish this whopping book for, above all, are its unforgettable vignettes ... Sandbrook has found the hinge on which our history in the 20th century will swing -- Godfrey Smith * Sunday Times *
Accomplishes for the television age what Barbara Tuchman achieved for the fourteenth century ... A highly readable history ... Sandbrook's narrative is reliably fluent, amusing and confident -- Richard Davenport-Hines * Times Literary Supplement *
A vast and wide-ranging history ... a thought-provoking survey of the transitional years between the Old Britain and the New * Waterstone's Book Quarterly *
A most readable and persuasive chronicle ... I recommend the book to anyone wishing to revive, or perhaps correct, his memories, and to anyone too young to have such memories who is curious to know what all the fuss was about * Oldie *
Splendid ... rife with revealing detail -- Henrik Bering * Policy Review *