Forgive the plug, but my new book, Ten Days That Changed The Nation - the Making of Modern Britain, is out today.

Here's what the blurb on the back says:

Sometimes it is not big events or great men or women that change
history. Often, an apparently trivial occasion or insignificant
decision changes everything.

Stephen Pollard's alternative history of
the past sixty years examines ten such crucial days in our history.
None of them are obviously historic. But each of them changed the
country - some for good, others for ill.

Combining history, analysis,
humour and polemic, this incisive look at events stretched across six
decades reveals how and why we became the nation we now are.

The ten
days which constitute Pollard's history of Britain deal with important
areas of national life. The arrival on 22 June 1948 of 492 West Indians
aboard HMS Empire Windrush changed the very make-up of the country. The
invention of the microwave on 8 October 1945 altered not just what we
eat but how we eat - and drink. The education system, Pollard argues,
was destroyed by the forced introduction of comprehensive schooling on
12 July 1965. Publication of Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch on 24
October 1970 changed family life. And the staging of It's a Royal
Knockout on 15 June 1987 marked the end of the monarchy as a serious
institution.

The events of other days transformed culture, politics,
crime, sport and the very future of Western civilization. Behind each
of the ten days is a story; some of these stories are well known, some
obscure.

Fusing narrative with analysis, and history with contemporary
relevance, Ten Days That Changed the Nation shows us the major impact
that apparently minor events can have on our lives.

Stephen Pollard's
approachable, readable narrative is as engaging as it is controversial.
Sure to incite debate, Ten Days That Changed the Nation is a handbook
for our times.

You can buy it here.