"The Way We Think About History, Especially British History, Has Changed"

"Hobsbawm wrote Industry and Empire when Britain was still an industrial nation. It isn't now. AJP Taylor ended his book, English History, 1914-1945, with the famous words, 'Few now sang "Land of Hope and Glory". Few even sang "England Arise". England has risen all the same.' This optimism had more resonance in the Swinging Sixties, a time of rising affluence when Britain had just elected its first Labour government since Attlee. Which British historians writing today could share that optimism now?"

David Herman at The Critic wonders why publishers have released so many biographies of British historians from the mid-twentieth century.