A Northern Wind - David Kynaston

The early sixties in Britain told as only David Kynaston (''the most entertaining historian alive'' Spectator) can. Running from 1962 to 1965, A Northern Wind is the anticipated new volume in the landmark ''Tales of a New Jerusalem'' series.''From Daleks and dingy tower blocks to nuclear threats, this addictively readable book charts dizzying change . . . Sometimes moving, often comic, always fascinating''DOMINIC SANDBROOK, SUNDAY TIMESHow much can change in two and a half years? In the case of Britain in the Sixties, the answer is: almost everything. From the seismic coming of Liverpool''s the Beatles to a sex scandal that rocked the Tory government to the arrival at No 10 of Harold Wilson, a Yorkshireman utterly different from his Old Etonian predecessors.A Northern Wind, the keenly anticipated next instalment of David Kynaston''s acclaimed Tales of a New Jerusalem series, brings to vivid life the period between October 1962 and February 1965. Drawing upon an unparalleled array of diaries, newspapers and first-hand recollections, Kynaston''s masterful storytelling refreshes familiar events – the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Big Freeze, the assassination of JFK, the funeral of Winston Churchill – while revealing in all their variety the experiences of the people living through this history.Major themes complement the compelling narrative: an anti-Establishment mood epitomised by the BBC''s controversial That Was The Week That Was; a welfare state only slowly becoming more responsive to the individual needs of its users; and the rise of consumer culture, as Habitat arrived and shopping centres like Birmingham''s Bull Ring proliferated. Multi-voiced, multi-dimensional and immersive, Tales of a New Jerusalem has transformed how we see and understand post-war Britain. A Northern Wind continues the journey.A WATERSTONES, TIMES, TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, SPECTATOR AND BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR''Magnificent . . . The early Sixties have never been recounted so well'' THE TIMES, BOOKS OF THE YEAR''A breathtaking array of treasures . . . A book to savour'' TLS''Extraordinarily atmospheric, capturing more than anything a sense of what this moment might have felt like to live through'' FINANCIAL TIMES''Kynaston is the most humane and even-handed chronicler of our time, and the one best-qualified to carry this mightily compelling national story onwards'' OBSERVER