All In It Together: England in the Early 21st Century

Alywyn Turner's lively and original history of Britain in the twenty-first century places culture front and centre in understanding who we are today, how we got here, and why so many of us don't understand the rest of us any more.

The headlines may be all Covid now, as a few short months ago they were all Brexit, but breakdown of the UK's political sphere has been a long time coming, and it is a symptom of a much deeper malaise. We seem to have lost our faith in all our social institutions, from parliament and the press to banking and religion. It is this wider disillusionment that All in It Together, a cultural, political and social history of Britain from 2000 to 2015, explains.

But this is no po-faced recounting of the last two decades. Drawing on both high politics and low culture, Alwyn Turner takes us from Downing Street to Benefits Street as he tells the defining story of contemporary Britain. The book takes in key issues such as immigration and the Scottish independence referendum, but also finds room for
grime, Grindr and the smoking ban. Brilliantly researched, intellectually stimulating and hugely entertaining, All in It Together will be required reading for years to come.