Our age

Noel Annan turns his attention to the men and women born in the years after the First World War, a cohort that went on to take charge of Britain during the 1950s. The book follows this group as they moved into positions of power and influence, shaping the institutions and public life of the decade that followed the war.

Annan, a Cambridge academic who later became Provost of King's College and a life peer, writes from close knowledge of the circles he describes. The result is a study of one generation's shared outlook and its effect on postwar Britain.