Kynaston's postwar history reaches 1965-66 with sixth Bloomsbury volume
David Kynaston's long history of postwar Britain has reached the mid-1960s. His new book, Deep into the Sixties: Britain 1965-66, is the sixth volume in the sequence, published by Bloomsbury. The Guardian published a review of the book on 28 September 2026. The Guardian
The wider project covers Britain from 1945 to 1979. With this volume it is now past halfway. Kynaston had originally expected the book to run on to 1967, but it stops in July 1966. The span is short. The book runs to nearly 700 pages including notes.
Bloomsbury describes the period as running from after the death of Winston Churchill in early 1965 to England's Wembley triumph in July 1966. Bloomsbury That frames the volume as February 1965 to July 1966, about 17 months of political, social and daily life.
Race and housing are central to the opening. In February 1965, Malcolm X visited Smethwick in the Midlands. The Conservative-run council there was planning to buy up houses to stop the area becoming a "coloured ghetto". During the visit Malcolm X was refused service in a pub. He was shot dead in the United States nine days later.
Sport carries the same thread. Leeds United winger Albert Johanneson was abused as a "golliwog" during the period. The insult sits alongside accounts of street life, high-rise housing, described at the time as streets in the sky, and changing pop culture.
Politics turns in March 1966. Labour won the general election with a majority of 97 seats. Education secretary Anthony Crosland pushed for the shift to comprehensive schools, meaning non-selective state secondary schools open to all abilities. Over the following eight years came 30 polytechnics, then the vocational alternative to universities, along with the Open University, a distance-learning university. Most children still left school at 15. Less than 6% in the United Kingdom went on to university, compared with 50% of high-school graduates in the US.
The telling is built from the ground up. The book draws on statistical surveys and sociological reports, political biographies, personal diaries and the letters of poet Philip Larkin. It also includes a five-page "freewheelin', mid-60s play list" of daily-life details, from food and clothes to television and transport.
In trade terms, the book sits in Bloomsbury's Tales of a New Jerusalem series, meaning the publisher groups it with the other Kynaston postwar titles. Bloomsbury Bloomsbury also lists Mark Meadows and David Kynaston as narrators, meaning the voices for the audiobook edition. Literary Review published a separate review of the volume. Literary Review
What makes this stand out for readers is the compression. One volume holds a general election, a World Cup win, a fight over schools and a snapshot of who got to study, work and live where.
