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A review by kingarooski
Long Road from Jarrow: A journey through Britain then and now by Stuart Maconie
4.0
Was 2016 like 1936?...I saw and heard chilling echoes, not from the Jarrow march route but not too far away, that made me think. Domineering men telling lies, big lies, and snarling at the judges and journalists who try to hold them to account. Contempt for women. Contempt for decency. Banter instead of wit. Cruelty in place of compassion. The age of the troll and the snowflake, people reduced to stereotypes, and the newspapers once again denouncing 'enemies of the people' and printing their names and pictures. In 2016, for the first time for me, it was not glib chatter or student drivel to think that something very like fascism was arising again out of the depths of history, a rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born.
Any book which quotes my favourite poem in its closing lines is a good book by my standards. This was an interesting and enjoyable book, but I was hoping for more Jarrow and less Brexit. I can see why Stuart Maconie needed to talk about Brexit because when he marched, this was all the nation talked about. It is easy to draw the parallels between the 30s and our current times, but I would have loved more about the Jarrow march. The book does give an accurate picture of Britain at the time when Stuart Maconie marched from Jarrow to London and I enjoyed his descriptions of each of the towns and cities where he stayed.
Any book which quotes my favourite poem in its closing lines is a good book by my standards. This was an interesting and enjoyable book, but I was hoping for more Jarrow and less Brexit. I can see why Stuart Maconie needed to talk about Brexit because when he marched, this was all the nation talked about. It is easy to draw the parallels between the 30s and our current times, but I would have loved more about the Jarrow march. The book does give an accurate picture of Britain at the time when Stuart Maconie marched from Jarrow to London and I enjoyed his descriptions of each of the towns and cities where he stayed.