The Day the Country Died

The oral testimony assembled here provides an often-lucid participant's view of the work of the wider anarcho-punk milieu, which demonstrates just as tellingly the diversity as well as the commonality by which it was defined. The collection hints at the extent to which--within a militant antiwar, anti-work, anti-system framework--the perception and priorities of the movement's activists differed: something the movement's critics (who were always keen to deride the uniformity of the 'Crass punks') rarely understood. --Rich Cross, Freedom With a backdrop of Thatcher's Britain, punk music became self-sufficient and considerably more aggressive, blending a DIY ethos with activism to create the perfectly bleak soundtrack to the zeitgeist of a discontented British youth. Including such iconic bands as Crass, Conflict, Flux of Pink Indians, Subhumans, Chumbawamba, Oi Polloi, Amebix, Rubella Ballet and Zounds to name but a few, Ian Glasper's history of punk stands out as an important and relevant history of the genre. --Dave Faulds, Dulwich Books Review Glasper is thorough and democratic. He lets everyone speak, tell their own story, edits out the rambling and bullshit and presents a fair picture of all the main bands from all over the UK and Ireland. Geographically divided up. It's an encyclopaedic but down-to-earth reference book, full of detail and anecdotes. --Ged Babey, LouderThanWar.com