The Autobiography of a Nation

Charles Plouviez reviews a book by Becky E. Conekin

Charles Plouviez | Published in 22 May 2003
  • The Autobiography of a Nation: The 1951 Festival of Britain
    by Becky E. Conekin
    Manchester University Press   £16.99    260 pp.
    ISBN 0 7190 6060 5  

This is the most comprehensive study of the Festival of Britain yet produced. An American academic living in the UK, Dr Conekin has read everything that has been written, interviewed almost everybody who has survived, and set the Festival in the political, cultural and sociological context of its time. The result is a dazzling portrait of the nation as symbolised by this most unlikely of happenings.

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