Britain. Made in Europe. A Guardian Best History and Politics Book of the Year 2025 In the
1930s tens of thousands of central Europeans sought sanctuary from fascism in Britain. While
the rainy seemingly quaint island they discovered on arrival was a far cry from the dynamism
of Weimar Berlin or Red Vienna it was safe and it became home. Yet the émigrés had not
arrived alone: they brought with them new and radical ideas and as they began to rebuild their
lives and livelihoods they transformed the face of Britain forever. Drawing on an immense cast
of artists and intellectuals including celebrated figures like Erno Goldfinger forgotten
luminaries like Ruth Glass and a host of larger-than-life visionaries and charlatans the
historian Owen Hatherley argues that in the resulting clash between European modernism and
British moderation our imaginations were fundamentally realigned and remade for the better. In
casting what Bertolt Brecht called in a new German word a Verfremdungseffekt an 'alienation
effect' on Britain the aliens made us all a little bit alien too. Provocative entertaining
and meticulously researched The Alienation Effect opens our eyes to the influence of the
émigrés all around us - many of our most quintessentially British icons are the product of this
culture clash - and entreats us to remember and renew our proud national tradition of asylum.
