About Britain
A Journey of 70 Years and 1,345 Miles
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to Cart failed.
Please try again later
Add to Wish List failed.
Please try again later
Remove from wish list failed.
Please try again later
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Buy Now for $21.85
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.
-
Narrated by:
-
Matt Addis
-
Written by:
-
Tim Cole
About this listen
A captivating glimpse of Britain then and now, seen from behind the steering wheel.
In 1951, the Festival of Britain commissioned a series of short guides they dubbed ‘handbooks for the explorer’. Their aim was to encourage readers to venture out beyond the capital and on to ‘the roads and the by-roads’ to see Britain as a ‘living country’.
Yet these thirteen guides did more than celebrate the rural splendour of this ‘island nation’: they also made much of Britain’s industrial power and mid-century ambition – her thirst for new technologies, pride in manufacturing and passion for exciting new ways to travel by road, air and sea.
Armed with these About Britain guides, historian Tim Cole takes to the roads to find out what has changed and what has remained the same over the 70 years since they were first published. From Oban to Torquay, Caernarvon to Cambridge, he explores the visible changes to our landscape, and the more subtle social and cultural shifts that lie beneath.
In a starkly different era where travel has been transformed by the pandemic and many are journeying closer to home, About Britain is a warm and timely meditation on our changing relationship with the landscape, industry and transport. As he looks out on vineyards and apple orchards, power stations and slate mines, vast greenhouses and fulfilment centres for online goods, Cole provides an enchanting look at twentieth and early twenty-first century Britain.©2021 Tim Cole (P)2021 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2