This is a fascinating look at collective national nostalgia and how each period of our history looks back on another age as the “Good Old Days”. The author explains how nostalgia is a comfort during troubled times and so we tend to only remember the good parts. She then sets out the actual history of Britain and how each age has been misremembered or often manipulated for political ends. What struck me was that in each age examined, the issues social commentators felt had declined in their age and were better in the old days were all pretty much the same and quite often concerned disruption to the social hierarchy. The exploration of the use of nostalgia as propaganda was particularly thought-provoking. I wasn’t sure about the section on historical fiction painting a rosy picture of the past. I’m sure some of it does but most of the historical fiction I read show how brutally ordinary people were treated and makes me feel relieved I’m alive now.
Thanks to Ebury Publishing, Penguin Random House and NetGalley for the review access.

It's an interesting and thought provoking book, perfect for this age when nationalisms and populisms are looking back to mythical past gold ages.
As a matter of fact this already happened a couple of millenia ago when Romans living in the imperial age looked back at the Republican age as the golden one.
I loved this books because there's a lot of myths about Britain past ages and the author did an excellent jobs in debunking them and picturing a more realistic image.
Well researched and well told.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

A look at people's view of different periods in history as times and perception changes. Empire and Great or empire and controlling.
White washing unpleasant historical events to make them acceptable.
Progress or destruction of history.
Differing view points on events that make you look at the events from different perspectives
Not an easy read as it makes you think and question your own thoughts.

This was a fascinating book to read. I read it (and discussed it) with a group of friends aging from 20's to 80's and it caused some seriously spirited debate .

Starting in the present Hannah works backwards spanning 500 years. We look back fondly at the good old days but were they as good as we remember. A fascinating journey back in time to look at how our mind changes our memories.

I was hoping this would be a bit more accessible to non-historians, but to those who know more about British history than me it's a great book which isn't too academic in tone. The main point sometimes gets a bit lost, but when it's there it's a great reminder that previous generations have been nostalgic about previous generations and so on for-ever, and that reducing the past down is both kind of inevitable but also does a disservice to those who actually lived through it. I particularly enjoyed the last chapter on the Reformation, and the conclusion, which I thought summed up the book well. Interesting, and an important perspective on a concept that has had such a grip on Britain for centuries.

A really interesting book for history lovers. It' snot the sort of book you'd read from cover to cover as it's a lot of information to take in, but it's a fascinating read about the obsession almost with nostalgia and the "good old days" which really weren't all that good, we just have a romantic rose-tinted memory of them. Very interesting links to politics and modern day.

I had really looked forward to this book but it did not meet my expectations and was not at all that I had anticipated. The writing was in a very long winded style, much too wordy and I found it to be dull and not conducive to wanting to read at all. Th preface was much too long and should have been condensed severely. The book itself failed to meet the title but the conclusion did make a serious attempt at bringing it all together.
A very disappointing read.

A history book written backwards?

The idea might sound bizarre, but in fact, in the case of Hannah Rose Woods’ excellent new book, it makes perfect sense. For this is a history of nostalgia itself. As Woods gradually takes us back from the 2020s to the Tudor era, it makes so much sense that a chapter covering the years 1914 to 1945 should follow the one focusing on the period spanning 1945 to 1979, that it soon begins to seem normal.

Indeed, there never seems to have been a time when Britain wasn’t taking a fond look back over its shoulder to savour the apparent security and certainties of the recent past. Many today might mourn the passing of the immediate post-war decades. But Woods is good at myth-busting and points out things were rarely as simple as they seem. From the perspective of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, Britain seemed, on the one hand, to be drifting into seemingly irreversible decline. We had lost our empire, been humiliated over Suez and as the 1960s moved into the 1970s, seemed to be perpetually lurching from one national crisis to another. This is all true enough. But at the same time as Harold Macmillan pointed out, “most of our people have never had it so good.” During his premiership and for nearly twenty years after it, lots of people had more money and free time than ever, acquiring cars, living in their own homes and going on foreign holidays for the first time. The year 1977 is often seen as marking something of a national low point, coming so soon after the 1976 IMF Crisis. But surveys from that year indicate Britons were then amongst the happiest peoples in the world. As the Canadian philosopher, Joni Michell had argued a few years earlier, “Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?”

There is more. Contrary to popular myth, lots of people were pleased to be moved out of their slums, most people who went to the New Towns didn’t regret it and some people were never happier during their entire lives than when the Nazis were bombing them during the Second World War.

In short, this is an enjoyable and well written book, packed with insights. You’ll be sure to remember it fondly, once it’s all over.

I enjoyed this, but it’s definitely a book you read across time, a bit at a time as it’s 400 pages and a lengthy book. A scholarly look at aspects of the British character and identity that continues on today, our obsession that things were better in the past. I learnt some British history that I thought I knew, so it’s really good for that and it’s very well written, just a bit overly serious at points, but an interesting read

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

In this tour de force of a book, Hannah Rose Woods sets out to demonstrate how in Britain “the good old days” were actually not always that good and that the past has long been misremembered, misrepresented or mythologised. Starting with the the present day period, the book takes a detailed, enlightening and challenging journey through 500 years of British history, separating the facts from the fantasy, the truth from the myths and exploring the impact that looking back through the prism of nostalgia has had on British history, society and politics. This is a serious, scholarly but always eminently readable look at an aspect of the British character and identity that continues to influence the national response to modern day issues such as Brexit, Covid and devolution. At some 400 pages this is quite a lengthy read but as an intelligent, thorough exploration of an important subject it is very much worth the investment of time and attention needed to understand how and why nostalgia retains such a grip on the national psyche.

I really had high expectations when I decided to read this but admit to being very disappointed. Whilst I expected the book to "debunk" the belief of nostalgia as something positive, I really did not think it would attempt to beat it to death by over-verbalising every aspect.

The Prologue was excessively long and the chapters quoted so many examples and attributions that the last 20% of the book is used to explain the sourcing.

Personally, I found nothing to redeem the verbosity and am convinced the book should have been a pamphlet, consisting only of the Conclusion which was aptly subtitled to match the aims of the book - In the past, even the future was better.

As far as I am concerned, nostalgia is there to make us feel better than our current circumstances allow. Silly example from me is that I remember the days of shops where you were served by human beings rather than by yourself and so for me and I suspect many others - Nostalgia Rules!

Misplaced nostalgia for the past. From the title, I was expecting a humorous book. This is more reflective, asking us to look at British history in a different way. Personally, I look forward rather than back, but perhaps it depends on your outlook on life. My favourite part was how the Pre-Raphaelites and Romantic poets of the nineteenth century looked to the beauty of the British countryside, yearning for a return to medieval times, forgetting how harsh most people's lives would have been then, and indeed still was. A book to dip into, rather than read straight though.

Rule Nostalgia - Hannah Rose Woods

A truly fascinating and insightful look back at loads of British history! Thoughtfully and creatively written, and a real delve into so many key British periods and ‘moments’. In most cases, we learn that all was never as good as it seemed, or remembered by its ‘successors!’ More a marathon than a sprint to get from cover to cover, but this will only further delight history officianados. More in-depth and detailed than I expected (a good thing not a bad one!), but too long and wordy for my poor attention span! However a great book, all be it a bit ‘marmite!’

I found Rule, Nostalgia fascinating, well researched and well written!

I learnt new things about areas of British history that I thought I was already pretty well versed in, and also a lot about other era which I knew little about.

The way Hannah Rose Woods links this back to the modern day to help shine a light on recent history and politics was great.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this one.