** A FINANCIAL TIMES NEW STATESMAN AND GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR ** 'A must read' - Janina
Ramirez bestselling author of Femina 'An eye-opening history of Britain's enduring fixation
with its own past' - Jeremy Paxman 'Rule Nostalgia announces Woods as one of the most
interesting new historians of her generation' - Dan Snow Longing to go back to the 'good old
days' is nothing new. For hundreds of years the British have mourned the loss of tradition and
called for a revival of 'simpler' 'better' ways of life from modern politicians indulging in
fantasies of an imperial past to Victorian artists yearning to retreat into a medieval dream
of Merry England. But were the 'good old days' ever quite how we remember them? Rule Nostalgia
is a surprising timely new history of Britain that separates the history from the fantasy and
traces back to its origins the powerful influence that nostalgia's perpetual backwards glance
has had on British history politics and society.
