EBOOK
About
***Chosen as a 2023 non-fiction highlight in the Guardian, Financial Times, New Statesman, The Tablet and Irish Times***
While for generations Polly Toynbee's ancestors have been committed left-wing rabble-rousers railing against injustice, they could never claim to be working class, settling instead for the prosperous life of academia or journalism enjoyed by their own forebears. So where does that leave their ideals of class equality?
Through a colourful, entertaining examination of her own family - which in addition to her writer father Philip and her historian grandfather Arnold contains everyone from the Glenconners to Jessica Mitford to Bertrand Russell, and features ancestral home Castle Howard as a backdrop - Toynbee explores the myth of mobility, the guilt of privilege, and asks for a truly honest conversation about class in Britain.
While for generations Polly Toynbee's ancestors have been committed left-wing rabble-rousers railing against injustice, they could never claim to be working class, settling instead for the prosperous life of academia or journalism enjoyed by their own forebears. So where does that leave their ideals of class equality?
Through a colourful, entertaining examination of her own family - which in addition to her writer father Philip and her historian grandfather Arnold contains everyone from the Glenconners to Jessica Mitford to Bertrand Russell, and features ancestral home Castle Howard as a backdrop - Toynbee explores the myth of mobility, the guilt of privilege, and asks for a truly honest conversation about class in Britain.
Related Subjects
Reviews
"Entertaining...a surprisingly enjoyable family memoir"
Sunday Times
"Part social analysis, part polemic (once a columnist, always a columnist), part compelling family memoir, replete with vivid - often hilarious, often shocking - anecdotes. It is ultimately, however, a work of love, forgiveness and understanding."
Financial Times
"Fascinating...She has spent a lifetime highlighting the need for social change, and her book fizzes with that continuing purpose"
Spectator