This book brings together the main intellectual and artistic themes of the post-war period. By drawing on examples throughout the arts and philosophy, the author traces the connections and the themes by which he believes the future will recognize our age. He ranges widely over literature, painting and sculpture, films architecture and criticism. The book is both a survey and an analysis of the battles that the post-war imagination has had to fight, and what has been achieved. The author calls his book a speculation about how our era will be known, and the works which will survive it, and he asks whether a distinctive national culture still exists at a time when Britain is being drawn steadily closer to Europe.