Noble Ambitions by Adrian Tinniswood

Noble Ambitions by Adrian Tinniswood

From the bestselling author of The Long Weekend: a wild, sad and sometimes hilarious tour of the English country house after the Second World War, when Swinging London collided with aristocratic values. 'Preposterously entertaining' Observer 'Brilliant' Daily Telegraph 'Rollicking' Sunday Times As the sun set slowly on the British Empire in the years after the Second World War, the nation's stately homes were in crisis. Tottering under the weight of rising taxes and a growing sense that they had no place in twentieth-century Britain, hundreds of ancestral piles were dismantled and demolished. Yet - perhaps surprisingly - many of these great houses survived, as dukes and duchesses clung desperately to their ancestral seats and tenants' balls gave way to rock concerts, safari parks and day trippers. From the Rolling Stones rocking Longleat to Christine Keeler rocking Cliveden, Noble Ambitions takes us on a lively tour of these crumbling halls of power. * A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year * * Longlisted for the William MB Berger Prize for British Art History *

[A] preposterously entertaining history of the postwar country house.. reading it is rather like leafing through an old leather-bound Smythson address book whose well-connected owner has helpfully added waspish notes, gossip and the odd family tree. In other words, it's heaven. -- Rachel Cooke * Observer *
Adrian Tinniswood's rollicking study perfectly captures the combination of decadence, pathos and brazen cheek that kept the English country house alive when it faced disaster. -- John Walsh * Sunday Times *
[A] brilliant new history of the country house since 1945... Tinniswood tells...[the] story superbly, his racy anecdotes mined not just from the usual memoirs, but from a studious trawl of endless local papers. -- Marcus Binney * Daily Telegraph *
Beautifully orchestrated... a compulsive read, deliciously voyeuristic and yet a triumph of meticulous social and cultural scholarship. * Country Life *
A vastly entertaining account of the crisis that befell England's stately homes in the decades immediately after the war. -- Simon Heffer * Daily Telegraph, *Books of the Year* *

Adrian Tinniswood is professorial research fellow in history at the University of Buckingham, adjunct professor of history at Maynooth University and the author of many books on British history, including the Sunday Times bestseller The Long Weekend. He was awarded an OBE for services to heritage, and lives in the west of Ireland.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781529111439
ISBN 10	1529111439
Title	Noble Ambitions
Author	Adrian Tinniswood
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Vintage Publishing
Year published	2023-10-05
Number of pages	432
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable