'The 1950s New Elizabethans recognised themselves but it has taken two generations of scholars to recognise them and the contribution they made to the national identity of these islands. The New Elizabethan Age starts with the makers of the culture rather than some pale abstraction of it. Underpinning the whole scholarly enterprise is the relationship of the arts to politics. Not before time, Enid Blyton and Margot Fonteyn, Shakespeare and King Arthur have been asked constitutional questions ("Who are the British?") in a single academic study. Among a number of excellent essays on modern conceptions of British national identity, consider Arthur Aughey's fine professorial dissection of how democracies need 'elective affinity' as well as votes, against screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce's first hand description of how the London Olympics opening ceremony came to behold a new nation.' - Robert Colls, Professor of Cultural History, De Montfort University, 'I was 10 during the Coronation so I'm old enough to be a New Elizabethan. I was fascinated by the examination of the phenomenon and its legacy. It's a thought-provoking and illuminating investigation of deeply embedded social and cultural habits. It's both surgery and autopsy.' - Sir Richard Eyre