This is really four or even five books in one, so extensive is the range and so comprehensive is its exploration of the subject. Encompassing such a vast amount of information in one volume makes reading it quite overwhelming, and although I found the book absolutely fascinating and one which introduced me to such a large cast of characters and so much interesting material, I found it quite exhausting. The subtitle explains clearly what it’s about – How Central European Emigrés Transformed the British Twentieth Century. Some of these emigrés were familiar to me. Some I’d never heard of. Tens of thousands of Central European fled to Britain to escape fascism and profoundly influenced the artistic and intellectual culture of the place that gave them refuge. The research is meticulous and the style is clear and accessible in spite of its academic and scholarly subject matter. The book is an important and valuable addition to British cultural history, and one that I will go back to time and time again – when I’ve had a rest.

The Alienation Effect is a very impressive book, which extends Owen Hatherley's already remarkable range. Here he offers a compelling historical overview of the impact of emigres from Central Europe following the rise of nazism on four aspects of British life: film and photography, publishing, art, and building. The level of detail on offer is impressive and any reader will learn much that is new to them and make all kinds of unexpected connections. The range of the book means naturally that it is a little uneven. While the discussion of film and photography (especially) in the first parts is fascinating and the discussion of book design shows powerfully how much British publishing owed to their German and other European counterparts, Part Three on art and artists seems less assured in comparison, until focusing on public art returns him to his real passion: buildings and architecture. He extends this in the final section on planning, building and reconstruction, which is the best part of the book and offers an overview that it is hard to imagine anyone bettering. The final Weimar/Brecht section, which explains the choice of title, is a little short and unconvincing in comparison, perhaps because the ideas are given insufficient space to develop. In addition, he can be a bit snide at times and, perhaps inevitably in a book of such scope, there are a few errors, which makes you wonder what else has slipped through (e.g. Elias Canetti did not really grow up in Bulgaria - he moved to Manchester with his family when he was 6 - and he didn't settle in England for the rest of his life but moved to Switzerland from 1972 until his death in 1994). But these criticisms are rather harsh. I would recommend this book unreservedly to anyone interested in 20th century art and design in Britain and in Europe.

There’s an encyclopaedia or five books of substance in this book. Hatherley communicates his extensive research in this well-structured (the parts and their chapters made sense/made for an easier to read to pick up from where you left off) book.
The Weimar in Britain discussion and what the emigres achieved and contributed to, and what is left from that impact are intriguing topics.
I took so much away from this book and found most of the information and discussion entirely fresh.