Growing pains all round as the old certainties loosened to give shape to our age (or at least to the 20th century world of recent memory). Hattersley covers all the key “Strange Death” trends - women’s suffrage, Ireland, the People’s Budget - as well as now forgotten crazes: the Blue Riband of the Atlantic, a prize for the fastest liner crossing, or the madcap 1910 air race from London to Manchester. The author is drawn to mavericks like Joseph Chamberlain, or Northcliffe so there’s always a tinge of admiration as he recounts their sallies and switches. Not so with the injudicious Kaiser Wilhelm or King Edward though, nor adventurers like Aurel Stein, a new name to me, meting out plunder and condescension beyond the Hindu Kush. There and elsewhere the old Boys Own icons of imperial heroism, the Scotts and Baden Powells, are nodded to, but of course, deflated somewhat. Eminent Edwardians right? The storytelling is sometimes a bit uneven, but in a sense the detail is more of interest than the broad sweep of the period, which is familiar enough. ( )

In this intricate, self-assured and insightfully anecdotal account of British social and political history from 1901 to 1914, Hattersley, a former Labour MP and cabinet minister, challenges the notion of the Edwardian age as "a long and sunlit afternoon," instead presenting it as a time of massive upheaval. After dissecting the louche temperament of King Edward VII, Hattersley profiles the period's leading political protagonists, including the "young turks" A.J. Balfour and Joseph Chamberlain (each "handicapped by character weaknesses") and analyzes the politically efficacious if "unlikely partnership" of soldier Winston Churchill and Welsh solicitor David Lloyd George. Pithy chapters delineate the raging issues that fatally divided the Liberal Party: empire and the Boer War, Irish nationalism, women's suffrage, the trade union movement and the rise of the Labour Party. Throughout Hattersley emphasizes the House of Commons' transformation in this period from a "gentleman's Parliament" into a professional legislature. He also summarizes cultural and social highlights, such as the professionalization of sports; new movements in the arts; intellectual life and church politics; and of course the advent of WWI. Illuminating the motivations of individuals and the age-old tensions between prominent elite families, Hattersley also challenges the traditional leftist view of Churchill. A convincing account of a watershed epoch, Hattersley's concise yet comprehensive history casts new light on a much-misunderstood era.

Independent, March 2006: 'Hattersley's account of this brief but pregnant era is packed with vivid detail ... Hattersley is a spiffing guide.'

Roy Hattersley has written this, I think, forgetting that not everyone is as well-acquainted with the dramatis personae as he is. He does not give them very lively, individual personalities, and so, while interesting and well-written stylistically, it is somewhat difficult to keep track of who is who and what alliances they have in the chapters on politics. The other chapters, covering areas such as sport, the arts, science and engineering, etc., are easier to digest.