Literary acclaim for Chichester historian’s book which recaps British history since millennium

• All In It Together chronicles UK’s cultural, political, and social history from 2000 to 2015
• Author Dr Alwyn Turner tells definitive story of the Blair, Brown, and Cameron years
• Chichester lecturer praised across literary circles for “unashamed 24-carat hoot”

THE truth behind the most infamous headlines of the last 20 years – and how modern Britain was shaped by critical decisions of its leaders in that time – has been woven together in a new book.

All In It Together by Dr Alwyn Turner, a historian at the University of Chichester, chronicles the cultural, political, and social history of the United Kingdom from 2000 to 2015.

The book tells the definitive story of the Blair, Brown, and Cameron years and tracks the spread of wider disillusionment in Downing Street, its consequences on the Scottish independence and Brexit referendums, to grime, Grindr, and the smoking ban.

“In Cool Britannia’s long hangover, every pillar of British society seemed to sink into a mire of its own making, from the Church to the banks to the great offices of state,” the University senior lecturer said. “Even the BBC lost its reassuring dignity – we were losing our faith in the system.”

All In It Together: England in the Early 21st Century is the latest instalment of Dr Turner’s series of books about Britain in the last decades of the 20th century. It has received critical acclaim from literary circles across the UK, including renowned Sunday Times reviewer Dominic Sandbrook who wrote: “Not just a serious work of contemporary history, but an unashamed 24-carat hoot.”

Mail on Sunday writer Craig Brown gave the book a five-star review and added: “All In It Together zings along with such telltale facts and figures, often with an injection of black humour.”

Historian Dr Turner’s writes on cultural and political history of modern Britain while teaching on the University of Chichester’s history degree – recently ranked in the top 15 for satisfaction by the Guardian’s university league table.

Speaking of the reaction to All In It Together, Dr Turner added: “Some details may trigger a laugh of recognition. The spectre of bird flu, the electoral machinations of Robert Kilroy-Silk. Others are so surreal you could be forgiven for blocking them out first time around.

“The deepest patterns, however, only reveal themselves at a certain distance. Through the Iraq War and the 2008 crash, the rebirth of light entertainment and the rise of the ‘problematic’, this book shows how the crisis in the soul of a nation played out in its daily dramas and nightly distractions.”

All In It Together: England in the Early 21st Century is out now from www.profilebooks.com/work/all-in-it-together.

Read more about Dr Turner and his other work on modern-day British politics and popular culture at www.chi.ac.uk/staff/law/alwyn-w-turner.