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| A History of Britain in Thirty-Six Postage Stamps
ISBN: 9781250035530
Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / Pan Macmillan
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time
Subjects: History; Fine Arts;
Issued in England in 1840, the "Penny Black," named for its price and background color, was the world's first postage stamp, which provides West a starting point for a concise, readable history of modern Britain. His conceit is clever: using postage stamps as a lens through which he focuses on historical events and issues from 1840 to the present: "Stamps tell stories" he writes. "They speak to us across generations." The author, clearly a keen philatelist, offers a broad overview of Britain's historical events and issues, from the Victorian era and the Industrial Revolution to the "Jubilee Olympic Britain" of 2012. He is good at explicating stamp design and subject matter, and finds connections between stamps and historical events-though sometimes he stretches this a bit too far. For example, the 1848 "Penny Red" stamp provides West an entree into the devastating potato famine that impacted millions, but the only link to the stamp is its Irish postmark. Similarly, the financial crisis in 2008 is "illustrated" by a stamp commemorating Lloyd's of London issued in 1999. But there is cultural history to be found in these miniature art forms, and West has certainly found it, providing a quirky, and always interesting, overview of modern British history. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
CHRIS WEST has written widely in a variety of genres. His titles include a bestselling business guide and a quartet of crime novels. He inherited a love of history from his father and an Edwardian "Lincoln" stamp album from his great-uncle as a child. His love for stamps was revived when he found that same dust-covered album in his attic as an adult. West is the author of A History of America in Thirty-Six Postage Stamps and A History of Britain in Thirty-six Postage Stamps . He lives in Cambridgeshire, London. |
