{"product_id":"the-ministry-of-nostalgia-isbn-9781784780753","title":"The Ministry of Nostalgia","description":"\u003cb\u003eWhy should we have to “Keep Calm and Carry On”?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In this brilliant polemical rampage, Owen Hatherley shows how our past is being resold in order to defend the indefensible. From the marketing of a “make do and mend” aesthetic to the growing nostalgia for a utopian past that never existed, a cultural distraction scam prevents people grasping the truth of their condition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e The Ministry of Nostalgia\u003c\/i\u003e explodes the creation of a false history: a rewriting of the austerity of the 1940s and 1950s, which saw the development of a welfare state while the nation crawled out of the devastations of war. This period has been recast to explain and offer consolation for the violence of neoliberalism, an ideology dedicated to the privatisation of our common wealth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In coruscating prose—with subjects ranging from Ken Loach’s documentaries, Turner Prize–shortlisted video art, London vernacular architecture, and Jamie Oliver’s cooking—Hatherley issues a passionate challenge to the injunction to keep calm and carry on.“A brave, incisive, elegant and erudite writer, whose books dissect the contemporary built environment to reveal the political fantasies and social realities it embodies.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Will Self\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A lively and gleefully argumentative book. Even when you disagree with Hatherley, he remains interesting. And there is a good chance, depressingly, that he is right about everything.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e —Jon Day, \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Hatherley hunts down his sacred cows hungrily and with brio. It is a ride that you can enjoy even if you don’t agree with the direction in which we’re heading … Good iconoclastic fun.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNew Statesman\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Demonstrates the qualities of empathy and social conscience, combined with acute judgement, that confirms Owen Hatherley to be the only true heir today of the great architectural critic Ian Nairn.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e —Gavin Stamp, \u003ci\u003eLiterary Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Combines analysis of the austerity nostalgia phenomenon with a parkour of film, art, graphic design, and especially architecture and urbanism, comparing romantic notions of wartime cohesion to the historical record.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e —\u003ci\u003eMaclean’s\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eThe Ministry of Nostalgia\u003c\/i\u003e is a brisk and bracing polemic about Britain’s relationship with its recent history … Any successful political project must address itself to what’s needed right now. Keeping calm and carrying on is about the worst possible response.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e —Richard Godwin, \u003ci\u003eEvening Standard \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Reflective and intelligent.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSpectator\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eOwen Hatherley\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Southampton, England in 1981. He received a PhD in 2011 from Birkbeck College, London, for a thesis on Constructivism and Americanism. He writes regularly on architecture and cultural politics for \u003ci\u003eArchitects Journal\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003ci\u003e Architectural Review\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003ci\u003e Icon\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003ci\u003e The Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003ci\u003e The London Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e and\u003ci\u003e New Humanist\u003c\/i\u003e, and is the author of several books: \u003ci\u003eMilitant Modernism\u003c\/i\u003e (Zero, 2009), \u003ci\u003eA Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain\u003c\/i\u003e (Verso, 2010), \u003ci\u003eUncommon: An Essay on Pulp\u003c\/i\u003e (Zero, 2011), \u003ci\u003eA New Kind of Bleak: Journeys through Urban Britain\u003c\/i\u003e (Verso 2012), \u003ci\u003eAcross the Plaza\u003c\/i\u003e (Strelka, 2012) and \u003ci\u003eLandscapes of Communism\u003c\/i\u003e (Penguin 2015). He also edited and introduced an updated edition of Ian Nairn’s \u003ci\u003eNairn’s Towns\u003c\/i\u003e (Notting Hill Editions, 2013). He lives in Woolwich and Warsaw.","brand":"Verso","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300818735333,"sku":"NP9781784780753","price":26.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781784780753.jpg?v=1767740519","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-ministry-of-nostalgia-isbn-9781784780753","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}