Introduction : nostalgia tells it like it wasn't -- Keep calm and take back control : 2021-1979 -- I was Lord Kitchener's valet : 1979-1940 -- The end of the garden party : 1940-1914 -- Never never land : 1914-1880 -- Those infernal and damnably good old times : 1880-1789 -- Decline and fall : 1789-1688 -- The Committee for the Demolition of Monuments : 1688-1530 -- Conclusion : in the past, even the future was better.

"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."-- Taken from publishers' website

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/443052/rule-nostalgia-by-woods-hannah-rose/9780753558744