The Ministry of Nostalgia

Praise

“A brave, incisive, elegant and erudite writer, whose books dissect the contemporary built environment to reveal the political fantasies and social realities it embodies.”
—Will Self

“A lively and gleefully argumentative book. Even when you disagree with Hatherley, he remains interesting. And there is a good chance, depressingly, that he is right about everything.”
—Jon Day, Guardian

“Hatherley hunts down his sacred cows hungrily and with brio. It is a ride that you can enjoy even if you don’t agree with the direction in which we’re heading … Good iconoclastic fun.”
—New Statesman

“Demonstrates the qualities of empathy and social conscience, combined with acute judgement, that confirms Owen Hatherley to be the only true heir today of the great architectural critic Ian Nairn.”
—Gavin Stamp, Literary Review

“Combines analysis of the austerity nostalgia phenomenon with a parkour of film, art, graphic design, and especially architecture and urbanism, comparing romantic notions of wartime cohesion to the historical record.”
—Maclean’s

“The Ministry of Nostalgia is a brisk and bracing polemic about Britain’s relationship with its recent history … Any successful political project must address itself to what’s needed right now. Keeping calm and carrying on is about the worst possible response.”
—Richard Godwin, Evening Standard

“Reflective and intelligent.”
—Spectator