Book review: When the Lights Went Out - Britain in the Seventies

With the economy in recession, taxation rising to punitive levels, and a general sense of having lived beyond our means, reminders of the 1970s are all around at the moment," said Philip Hensher in the Spectator.

So Andy Beckett's "interesting and well informed" political history of the period "comes at an opportune time. Yet in the retelling, the decade seems so peculiar that you can hardly believe it took place at all". It describes a time when the state owned not just most of British industry, but also "Thomas Cook and all the pubs of Carlisle". Thanks to strikes, the infrastructure broke down so badly that Blue Peter advised its viewers on how to keep old people warm during power cuts: "Lay out sheets of newspaper," said Peter Purves. "Place them fairly thickly between the blankets... and the old folks will stay warm as toast."

This "thoughtful, balanced and illuminating book" provides "much good colour", said Brian Groom in the Financial Times. It's fascinating to be reminded that during the "winter of discontent" of 1978-1979, striking truck drivers blockaded Hull so completely that it was dubbed "Stalingrad"; rubbish piled up as dustmen went on strike, food was rationed and "cargoes froze on the docks".

But Beckett also makes a good case for the positive side of the decade, from the rise of feminism to the growth of the North Sea oil trade. This book is "more a collection of entertaining vignettes than a continuous argument or flowing narrative", said Dominic Sandbrook in the Sunday Times.

Sandbrook enjoyed Beckett's account of meeting a "grotesquely fat and glacial" Ted Heath, days before his death, but felt that the author provides few "great insights" into the era. Ultimately, When the Lights Went Out never answers the question so often posed at the time: "What’s Wrong with Britain?"

When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies, by Andy Beckett, 592pp (Faber, £20) The Week Bookshop £18 (incl p&p) ·