An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain cover art

An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain

Or Sixty Years of Making the Same Stupid Mistakes as Always

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free + £10 Audible voucher

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Get this deal
Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.
More purchase options

An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain

By: John O'Farrell
Narrated by: John O'Farrell
Get this deal

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £5.17

Buy Now for £5.17

Following his hugely popular account of the previous 2000 years, John O'Farrell now comes bang up to date with a hilarious modern history asking 'How the hell did we end up here?'

An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain informs, elucidates, and laughs at all the bizarre events, ridiculous characters, and stupid decisions that have shaped Britain's story since 1945 - leaving the 21st-century reader feeling fantastically smug for having the benefit of hindsight.

©2009 John O'Farrell (P)2009 Random House Audiobooks 20th Century Europe Modern Socialism Funny Witty Imperialism Iran Winston Churchill United Kingdom Africa Middle East Taxation Capitalism Latin American Interwar Period
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
All stars
Most relevant
Thoroughly enjoyable gallop through the twentieth century - several laugh-out-loud moments, although the author seemed to get less funny as his book approached modern times. Perhaps he cares too much about more recent political developments to be properly funny about them? Still well worth a listen.

Good, but not great

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
a very good listen with amusing content using key events and protagonists to lay out recent political history read by the author.

entertaining look at 60 years of politics and politicians

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The word 'political' should be inserted in the title before 'history'. That's because it is all about politics rather than general history. If you don't mind that then this is quite entertaining, if not then it can be a bit dull.

Too focused on politics

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The author starts by acknowledging his labour leanings which led me to hope that he would try to keep it as impartial and witty as possible, unfortunately he fails on both counts. The jokes range from OK to dire and the politics throught are firmly socialist in character.

You will learn very little new from listening to this book, it only deals with the most obvious targets in UK history, and by the end I regretted having wasted my time and money on it.

Disappointing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.