Stereo Views An Illustrated History and Price Guide Book

A very comprehensive overview of Britain from the Celts through to the modern day. The version I read was written (and therefore ends) in 1996 although I believe there is also a modern updated version.

As we're often taught history in a haphazard way at school (now we're studying the Tudors, now the Romans, now WWI) it was satisfying to be finally able to read it as one long (actually very engaging) story. Whilst there obviously isn't room (within what's still quite a hefty volume) to cover every event of note that ever happened, the book is great at illustrating the changes in the driving ideology of each era - for example, that we have moved from being a deeply religious society in which the 'good life' was to come in the next life, to one is which 'the good life' is now and it is seen as our right to live it.

It's clear that the author, Roy Strong, a committed Anglican, wasn't actually that happy with that turn of events, and that would be my only criticism: that the later chapters, covering the 20th century, are increasingly disparaging and lose a sense of neutrality. One quote that sums this up is when Strong writes that in the 90's, "a third of all marriages ended in failure adding to a rising under-class of one-parent families, to which can be added the other losers in society: the old, the unemployed, and those caught in the poverty trap." Blooming heck Roy.