Using the Census records and the national surveys data, the author attempts to paint the picture of the history of Britain for the past two centuries. It is an interesting read, and surprisingly very easy to read although it is about numbers. However, I am not convinced about the truth that these numbers reveal. Indeed the census records inform national decisions but whether they are really representative is another matter that needs a lot of discussion.

This was a curious history of Britain (but to my mind, most of the examples were from England), seen through the lens of the various census that have been held since the 1800s. It tells the story of a constantly changing nation and the continual improvement of lives and livelihoods. The question of whether the nation was increasing or decreasing, and to what extent, is what began the query of the state of the nation in 1801, and this question continues to resonate today.

As the state increases in size, so does its interest in its citizens. The author writes aware of the post-COVID context and reminds us that the data from the 2011 census has been crucial in planning the response to the pandemic. The author is to be commended for essentially turning what could easily be a Christmas-present 'book of trivia' into a semi-narrative covering the last few centuries. He manages to weave in what could easily be regarded as anecdotes - the changing nature of the choice of names - into what this tells us about generational change. And change is the obvious pattern of the book - the decline of religious weddings; the contemporary increase of adult children living with parents; the decline from 4.3 children in 1871 to 1.8; the increase of the unmarried or divorced in the over 50s; that in 2011 17/20 people were born in the UK; the bar that many women suffered in retaining employment after marriage before the war.

Elements of this book I found particularly interesting - the decline of various professions and employments; change in housing and the increase of mortgages; the marked increase in homelessness and the early age of death of those who are homeless; the 'thankful' villages of the world wars; the increase of widowhood and fatherlessness after the Great War and the increase of late-marriage. For obvious reasons, the census undertaken in the light of the Spanish Flu was more interesting that it might have been otherwise.

Why only three stars? The authors are a successful crime novelist, and the ONS press officer. The book felt a little too much like ‘popular history,’ and not in a good way. There is little of controversy or challenge. My attention kept on being broken by the 'humorous asides' and contemporary references (which will themselves date terribly). When read over an entire book these began to feel frustrating and gave the impression of a lack of seriousness. Most frustratingly, the final chapter about what a census of the 22nd century might find was speculative nonsense, and left me feeling that I'd wasted my time.

Whilst intriguing, I would struggle to commend this book. If someone's going to take the time to read a social history, I'd rather suggest David Kynaston or Dominic Sandbrook.

First of all, I would like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for sending me the book to review.
Having read the description, I was quite intrigued. It's usually difficult for me to remember numbers, although I use ONS data in my research and publications all the time. I found this book very interesting. The author gives you another perspective on everyday life in the UK.
The last chapter, where the author speculates about the future, did not sound right to me though.
It would be interesting to read a similar book in 50(ish) years and think "oh, I was one of those that year," or "what a decade that was."

This was so interesting and is broken down into nice digestible sections. It takes you through the changing face and make up of Britain using census and additional data. There are even a few jokes thrown in for good measure. Will defiantly go back to this book time and again as was so fascinating.

The ONS has been charged with recording the minutiae of life in the UK through its decennial census and other data collection. Here that data is dissected and changes throughout time are considered in social context. It is a fascinating story of social change and its effects on everyday life.

A really interesting, informative and entertaining story of Britain, full of data.
The author did an excellent job in delivering a history book based on data and making it compelling and enjoyable.
It's recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Written by Boris Starling and David Bradbury, this is a remarkably revealing history of Britain drawn from census and other national surveys. It features an introduction by Sir Ian Diamond, UK national statistician, pointing out the long global and British tradition of monitoring national changes, such as the 1086 Domesday Book. The importance of collating figures should not be underestimated for rulers and governments past and present, used for areas such as taxes, conscription, public policies and planning. The authors use censuses, now compulsory and carried out every 10 years, and other data that provide a snapshot of a nation over 2 centuries, looking at what has changed and what has remained constant, along with identifying national characteristics of the people.

The book is organised into 3 sections, the first looks at who we are, the second at what we do, and the third at where we live, with further sections looking back at a hundred years from the 1921 census to the present, and a more speculative look at what the 2021 census might potentially give us information on, including the fact that will contain greater details of the impact of the current Coronovirus pandemic nationally. Areas examined are how we are born, live and die, the changing nature of family structures such as the size of families, the rise of same sex marriages and families, rising divorce rates, birth and death rates, the implications of people living longer, and since 1991, changes in ethnicity and the growing diversity of the UK. The shift from rural to urban living is charted through time and patterns in housing tenure, home ownership, homelessness, and the increasing diversity of our cities.

It is interesting to observe the changing nature of jobs and occupations through time, how the jobs market has moved in directions that have eliminated certain jobs along with the creation of new occupations in the labour market, including more homeworking, particularly with the current pandemic, a trend likely to continue post-Covid 19. The effects of technology on our lives can scarcely be ignored such as the huge increase of online shopping and growth of social media. This is a book that is likely to pique the interest of many readers, it is so informative and insightful in capturing essential elements of Britain. However, when it comes to statistics, one must always list the proviso, there are lies, damned lies and statistics! Many thanks to HarperCollins for an ARC.

I knew this was going to be informational, I was just sometimes overwhelmed with how much stats the author was talking about. Very interesting though, and I recommended it to my sister!

My thanks to the publishers for a review copy of this book, which charts some key indicators of our social history over the past 200 years through what has been officially recorded by censuses and surveys which are nowadays the responsibility of the office for national statistics.

It covers, by way of introduction, the ancient practice in Egypt, China, India and the Roman Empire of assessing populations for army conscription and taxes. Then we focus on enumeration as it evolved in Britain from the Domesday book onwards with some fascinating detail, quite apart from the meaning of Domesday. There have, for example only been 2 censuses where significant numbers of people boycotted the exercise, one before and one a long time after the 10 yearly census became compulsory.

Most of the book is devoted to what censuses, surveys and other official statistics tell us about who we are, what we do and where we live over the past 200 years. For me, many of the social trends - older parents, improving child survival, falling fertility, marriage and cohabitation rates, multi family households, the growth in same sex families and civil weddings, the numbers of people now living alone - are not surprising news but the numbers over time are revealing and thought provoking.

Ethnicity questions were only included in the census from 1991. Nonetheless there is a wealth of detail on where we have come from, where we live now and the languages spoken by us. Who would have otherwise known that the highest proportion of sign language practitioners live in Thanet?

Most people would have noticed the rise of online shopping predicated on access to the internet and its meteoric rise, but I was surprised the author did not explain the November peak as due to Black Friday. But then, it has to be said that the author does suffer from attacks of dad, or should that be grandad, humour. I appreciate the anxiety to make statistics entertaining but I found the material very interesting anyway and only the tired, sometimes stereotypical jokes irritating on occasions.

The sections on employment and the different lives of women and men over the last 200 years are particularly illuminating as the people affected by industrialisation, urbanisation and world wars include many of our own recent ancestors. The figures also show how and when services took over from manufacturing in overall employment importance and how they are a salient feature of the nation’s economy. I’d better not mention Brexit here and the author wisely does not mention it either.

There are some quite extraordinary insights in this book. Consider these as examples. Deaths in the workplace amount now to a mere 3% of the number in 1912. The last time house prices were 13 times the average wage was in 1845. They reached that dizzy height in London in 2019. But what reduced prices after 1845? More houses, smaller houses and higher wages.

Naturally there are some compelling similarities between the census of 1921 and the census planned for next year, 2021, which will be the first online census. Both follow pandemics (and one a world war). Perhaps it is too close to risk exploring the prospective findings next year, but some preliminary indicators would have been more interesting, I think, than the rather depressing fantasy on what might be found in 2121, which precedes the concluding chapter of the book.

Some of the sources of statistical information along with websites and contact details listed in after the text are useful and all in all, this is a fascinating read. Recommended.

I wanted to like this book, but it sadly failed to deliver. It tried to be funny but it came across like an awkward joke from your uncle Nigel, and at times it was obviously inaccurate or littered with typos, for example one of the diagrams on baby names was showing names popular in only 1 decade had the same name appearing multiple times etc. It was a good idea to write a book like this, but I feel the author needed to have considered who his audience was before writing, i.e. if it's meant to be humourous then make it humourous, or if it's just meant to be lots of facts, then make sure it's all accurate and laid out in an easy to read format. I havee this book 3 stars more as a consideration to the author for the time he put into it rather than the quality

A history of Britain in statistics? Ew! No thanks. Boring surely? Well, no actually. Believe it or not, this is actually a very informative and a genuinely very readable and yes, very informative read, packed full of "did you know?" type facts which you will instantly want to share with anyone nearby, regardless of whether they want to hear them or not. Providing numerous insights into how our way of life has changed in the last 200 years - what we are called, what jobs we do, how long we live, when and if we marry, how many children we choose to have, what we choose to call them, how likely we are to divorce, when and how we die and so much more.
This is a funny and well written book, but it's interesting for another reason entirely: it's the story of us.