'An excoricating and enormously satisfying assault on historical postmodernism.' New Statesman Books of the Year 2003

At a time of resurgent popular interest in history, Jonathan Clark's new book is a landmark defence of traditional values.He argues that our sense of tradition and community, and even our morality is being destroyed.
In a series of original and incisive chapters on, among other things, Anglo-American relations, the decline of the United Kingdom as a entity and the absence of English nationalism, Clark argues for an alternative to an apparently liberal attitude to morality and politics and a dedication to the present, based instead upon a clear recognition of the value of the past. An important and timely book in which a distinguished historian attacks - vigorously, brilliantly and elegantly - Britain's loss of tradition.'The exhilarating point about Clark is that there is never an "end" to anything. His history offers insights as it churns through time, but all conclusions always need looking at afresh from generation to generation... Clark never ceases striving to amaze... one of the sparkiest British questioners on the scene. ' Peter Preston, Guardian