I was drawn to this, as to his wonderful TV series of the same name, by the fact that it's a history that covers my lifetime. It's the story of the world I've grown up in, and it's full of fascinating insights.He's best (hardly surprisingly, given his background) on the politics of the time - what was going on behind the scenes. I'm not totally convinced by his analyses of what was going on in society at large.
But there are some great turns of phrase and analogies. Such as these about the 1960s...
About the advent of child-centred teaching: "Instead of viewing the child as an empty pot, happily large or sadly small, into which a given quantity of facts and values could be poured, the new teaching regarded the child as a magic box, crammed with integrity and surprise, which should be carefully unwrapped."
About the difference between left and right: "The left tended to think that people's private lives should be their own, even if they made choices traditional Christian society regarded as immoral; but that people's working lives, from how much they earned to where they worked, were fit for State interference. The right had a reverse view, that the state should uphold traditional moral codes with the full rigour of the law, but keep out of the economy as much as possible."
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