Accelerate!: A History of the 1990s

The 1990s was a decade of significant events, including the collapse of the Soviet Union, the declaration of the "end of history" by Francis Fukuyama, the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, the launch of Google, the cloning of a sheep by scientists in Edinburgh, and the death of the world's most photographed woman in a car crash in Paris. It was also a time of radical pop band The KLF burning a million quid on a Scottish island, anti-globalisation protestors attacking McDonalds restaurants, and American survivalists stockpiling guns and tinned food in preparation for Y2K. The decade is remembered with a mixture of proximity and distance, familiarity and strangeness, and is often seen as a time of liberal optimism, fin-de-siècle decadence, or the seedbed for the discontents we face today.

Format: Hardback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 29 September 2022
Publisher: The History Press Ltd

The 1990s was the decade in which the Soviet Union collapsed and Francis Fukuyama declared the ‘end of history’. Nelson Mandela was released from prison, Google was launched and scientists in Edinburgh cloned a sheep from a single cell. It was also a time in which the president of the United States discussed fellatio on network television and the world’s most photographed woman died in a car crash in Paris. Radical pop band The KLF burned a million quid on a Scottish island, while the most-watched programme on TV was Baywatch. Anti-globalisation protestors in France attacked McDonald’s restaurants and American survivalists stockpiled guns and tinned food in preparation for Y2K.

For those who lived through it, the 1990s glow in the memory with a mixture of proximity and distance, familiarity and strangeness. It is the decade about which we know so much yet understand too little. Taking a kaleidoscopic view of the politics, social history, arts and popular culture of the era, James Brooke-Smith asks – what was the 1990s? A lost golden age of liberal optimism? A time of fin-de-siècle decadence? Or the seedbed for the discontents we face today?

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780750996839