| 'A portrait of an age, rather than a formal history', Wilson's book begins in 1901, as Edward VII becomes king and Great Britain commands the mightiest empire the world had ever seen: it ends with the coronation of Elizabeth II and Britain, although victorious in the Second World War, ruined as a world power. How this dramatic decline in power and influence came about is one of the questions AN Wilson seeks to answer, looking particularly at the dominant roles of the economic challenges of the 1930s and the Second World War.
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