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An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain

or Sixty Years of Making the Same Stupid Mistakes

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An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain

By: John O'Farrell
Narrated by: John O'Farrell
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About this listen

 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 Europe Great Britain Funny Witty England Socialism Imperialism Iran Winston Churchill United Kingdom Middle East Africa Taxation Social justice Capitalism British Empire Latin American
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Where does An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Very high. It is an excelent book and a very enjoyable way to learn English history. I've read the earlier book (Utterly Exasperated History...) which was excelent, so I knew I will enjoy this one. However, if you treat it as a history lesson, be careful. The author cannot (and I guess does not want to) hide his political views, which might be slightly irritating (especially for the Conservatives, he is so obviously pro-Labour) and misleading. Still, the facts are all there and presented in an easy-to-stomach way.

What did you like best about this story?

it is very funny. I actually burst out laughing quite a few times while listening to it, so beware you don't listen to it in public!

Which scene did you most enjoy?

there are no scenes, it is a history book! Silly form.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, I cannot handle too much history in one go, as I do not remember it properly later.

Any additional comments?

Very, very nice!

informative and funny!

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First things first: If you already own 1950 - 2000 by the same author only the introduction and the first chapter will contain new material. If you don't have them, grab this with both hands. It's not AJP Taylor, and does give a fairly left biased view but this is a very good light summary of events since the second world war. Mr O'Farrell is a very good author and an excellent raconteur and he covers events in an amusing way that helps events stick in my mind. I heartily recommend this audiobook to anybody wanting to dip a toe into modern British history and come away amused and lightly educated.

A very amusing summary of modern history.

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Good but not as good as the last book which was a little disappointing, however it was certainly still both entertaining and informative.

Not as good as the last one

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From Clem to Tony and Gordon, the author signals the development of our post-war life, from the wonders of the NHS (much as we like to moan about it) through the Thatcher devastations, EU, stupid wars over Suez, Falklands and Iraq/Afghanistan, world economic crisis over subprime mortgages, without sounding like a grumpy old man.
He’s right that, after decades of Irish terrorism, we should not have overreacted to 9/11, ending up by provoking new terror groups to seek notoriety. But because the book ends when it does, he’s over optimistic about the USA, and could never have foreseen Brexit (turning UK into a client state of USA), but he did remind me of many of the positive achievements of these years. As the human brain is designed to pick out the negative, an essential element of survival, it’s as well to focus on good things as well (as the 3-day week, miners’ strikes, 3m unemployed, poll tax, denationalisation, we did have improved rights for women and many minorities, the Good Friday Agreement, and, until now, membership of the EU.
What comes next (2019 on) we’ll have to wait and see (and pray very hard!)

A short amusing account of post-war UK

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It's a brilliant bit writing and even better reading by John O'Farrell. He reads it exactly how he intended to write it, something that may not come across so easily in the book, but does miss some major parts of recent history and is, to be frank, very biased, but a good listen to anyway.

Good

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