A well-researched history of Britain in 1997 Sayeed captures neatly how Blairs drive to modernise the UK left behind large sections of the country, most notably working class people. * Prospect * Activists will find in this critique of New Labour the serious warning that a radical message, however creatively promoted, is useless without real action. * Peace News * Richard Power Sayeed establishes himself as the definitive critical chronicler of the Blair years with his superb book 1997: The Future That Never Happened * Open Democracy Books of the Year * It is difficult to do justice to Sayeeds qualities as a writer. He brings a sympathetic eye, attention to detail, a knack for evoking scenes, and acute thumbnail sketches of characters ... Deceptively sophisticated, and sometimes lethal in its critique. * Jacobin * Phenomenal ... One of my books of 2017. * Aaron Bastani, Novara Media * A vital book that combines great storytelling with fresh insights, and says as much about the present as the recent past. * Alwyn W. Turner, author of A Classless Society: Britain in the 1990s * Richard Power Sayeed has vividly reprised the year 1997, when radical currents flowed into the mainstream, and the authorities "welcomed moderate reforms with satisfied contentment." Such promise - but what did it deliver? * Andy McSmith, author of No Such Thing as Society: A History of Britain in the 1980s * A dazzling, funny, and impressively detailed analysis of one of the most important years in modern British history. Both nostalgic and deeply critical, this book casts 1997 in an entirely new light. * Ellie Mae O'Hagan * A beautifully written, brilliantly insightful account of New Labour's Britain and fundamental to our understanding of how this country ended up in this mess. * Owen Jones *
