Albion's Secret History compiles snapshots of English pop culture's
rebels and outsiders, from Evelyn Waugh to PJ Harvey via The Long
Blondes and The Libertines. By focusing on cultural figures who served
to define England, Guy Mankowski looks at those who have really shaped
Albion's secret history, not just its oft-quoted official cultural
history. He departs from the narrative that dutifully follows the
Beatles, The Sex Pistols and Oasis, and, by instead penetrating the
surface of England's pop history (including the venues it was shaped
in), throws new light on ideas of Englishness. As well as music,
Mankowski draws from art, film, architecture and politics, showing the
moments at which artists like Tricky and Goldfrapp altered our sense of
a sometimes green but sometimes unpleasant land. 'The most illuminating
odyssey through lost, hidden or forgotten English pop culture since
Michael Bracewell's England Is Mine.' Rhian E. Jones, author of
Clampdown: Pop-Cultural Wars on Class and Gender