Britain's empire has gone. Our manufacturing base is a shadow of its
former self; the Royal Navy has been reduced to a skeleton. In military,
diplomatic and economic terms, we no longer matter as we once did. And
yet there is still one area in which we can legitimately claim
superpower status: our popular culture.
It is extraordinary to think that one British writer, J. K. Rowling, has
sold more than 400 million books; that Doctor Who is watched in almost
every developed country in the world; that James Bond has been the
central character in the longest-running film series in history; that
The Lord of the Rings is the second best-selling novel ever written
(behind only A Tale of Two Cities); that the Beatles are still the
best-selling musical group of all time; and that only Shakespeare and
the Bible have sold more books than Agatha Christie.
To put it simply, no country on Earth, relative to its size, has
contributed more to the modern imagination. This is a book about the
success and the meaning of Britain's modern popular culture, from Bond
and the Beatles to heavy metal and Coronation Street, from the Angry
Young Men to Harry Potter, from Damien Hirst to The X Factor.