The book behind major BBC2 series The Seventies" Dominic Sandbrook's " State of Emergency
- The Way We Were: Britain 1970-74" is a brilliant history of the gaudy schizophrenic atmosphere of the early Seventies. The early 1970s were the age of gloom & glam. Under Edward Heath the optimism of the Sixties had become a distant memory. Now the headlines were dominated by social unrest fuel shortages unemployment & inflation. The seventies brought us miners' strikes blackouts IRA atrocities tower blocks & the three-day week yet they were also years of stunning change & cultural dynamism heralding a social revolution that gave us celebrity footballers high-street curry houses package holidays gay rights green activists & progressive rock; the world of Enoch Powell & Tony Benn David Bowie & Brian Clough Germaine Greer & Mary Whitehouse. Dominic Sandbrook's " State of Emergency" is the perfect guide to a luridly colourful Seventies landscape that shaped our present from the financial boardroom to the suburban bedroom. " Hugely entertaining always compelling often hilarious". (Simon Sebag Montefiore " Sunday Telegraph"). " Thrillingly panoramic.. .he vividly re-creates the texture of everyday life in a thousand telling details". (Francis Wheen " Observer"). " Masterly.. .nothing escapes his gaze". (" Independent on Sunday"). " Splendidly readable.. .his almost pitch-perfect ability to recreate the mood & atmospherics of the time is remarkable". (" Economist"). Dominic Sandbrook (b.1974) an indirect result of the Heath government's three-day week giving couples more leisure time. He is now a prolific reviewer & commentator writing regularly for the " Daily Telegraph" " Daily Mail" & " Sunday Times". He is the author of two hugely acclaimed books on Britain in the Fifties & Sixties " Never Had It So Good" & " White Heat"."