The Age of Illusion

First published in 1963, this is a social and cultural history of England between 1919 and 1940. Blythe moves through the peace celebrations, slump, royal and political scandals, suburban growth, entertainment, and the drift toward another war, using episodes and public figures as markers of mood rather than as a year-by-year chronicle. The book attends to ordinary life and to the gap between official language and private feeling. It is a portrait of the interwar nation, not a military history of the coming war and not a novel.

Bound in metallic light-green buckram, blocked in black with a title design by Raquel Leis Allion.