It is unusual and refreshing to read a modern mega-history that downplays the grand and famous in favour of the mass of the population. Weight would rather explain the decline in tea-drinking during the 1970s - market researchers discovered that the drink had become associated with time-wasting and disputes at factories - than tell you in a stage whisper about intrigues in the cabinet. Similarly, the structure of the book, which is divided into chapters titled "Swingers", "Sceptics", "Hustlers" and so on, gives a more realistic sense of a constantly shifting, multifaceted national character than volumes on the subject usually provide.