White Heat. A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties

As 1963 drew to a close, Harold Wilson's famous words captured the optimistic spirit of a society in the midst of breathtaking political, cultural and technological change. From the gaudy pleasures of Swinging London to the tragic bloodshed in Northern Ireland, from Westminster intrigues to World Cup triumph, British life seemed to have taken on a dramatic new momentum. In the latest volume in his magisterial history of postwar Britain, Dominic Sandbrook looks behind the myths of the Swinging Sixties to unearth the contradictions of a society caught between optimism and decline.