1996 & the End of History examines the year as it panned out in the UK not just in politics but in music, light entertainment & sport. It was the zenith of a decade which will go down as remarkably untroubled by modern standards; following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, prior to 9/11, in which political conditions of peace & apparent economic prosperity created an overall mood of frivolity, postmodern anti-seriousness & a desire to get back to sunnier times..

..before the grim onset of the strife-ridden 70s and 80s. 1996 could be seen in the UK as a subconscious recreation of the year 1966; the England football team seeking similar glory at Wembley Stadium in Euro 96, Tony Blair representing the white heat of an incoming Labour government after many years of Tory rule a la Harold Wilson, Oasis’s absolute dominance a throwback to the monomania surrounding The Beatles.

However, the author argues, this mood of retrograde optimism was a distraction, the feeling of prosperity a delusion, one compounded by the notion that now the End Of History had arrived, so had the old oppositions of Left And Right; that we were entering post-political times. They were nothing of the kind, as the future we find ourselves in today confirms.

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