The Alienation Effect - How Central European Emigres Transformed the British Twentieth Century

<Britain. Made in Europe.
In the 1930s, tens of thousands of central Europeans sought sanctuary from fascism in Britain. While the rainy, seemingly quaint island they discovered on arrival was a far cry from the dynamism of Weimar Berlin or Red Vienna, it was safe, and it became home. Yet the emigres had not arrived alone: they brought with them new and radical ideas, and as they began to rebuild their lives and livelihoods, they transformed the face of Britain forever.
Drawing on an immense cast of artists and intellectuals, including celebrated figures like Erno Goldfinger, forgotten luminaries like Ruth Glass, and a host of larger-than-life visionaries and charlatans, the historian Owen Hatherley argues that in the resulting clash between European modernism and British moderation, our imaginations were fundamentally realigned and remade for the better. In casting what Bertolt Brecht called, in a new German word, a Provocative, entertaining and meticulously researched, <>

Product details

• Authors: Owen Hatherley, Hatherley Owen
• Publisher: Penguin Books Uk
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Release: 26.03.2026
• EAN: 9780141989778
• ISBN: 978-0-14-198977-8
• No. of pages: 608
• Dimensions: 129 mm x 198 mm x 35 mm
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Architecture; History of Ideas, European History, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Emigration & Immigration, 20th Century, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, HISTORY / Jewish, ARCHITECTURE / History / General, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / 20th Century, Jewish Studies, History of Art, British & Irish history, Migration, immigration & emigration, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Modernism, Central Europe, Social and cultural history, Early 20th century c 1900 to c 1950, Migration, immigration and emigration, History of Architecture, Art & design styles: Modernist design & Bauhaus, Art & design styles: c 1900 to c 1960, Urban communities, Relating to Jewish people and groups, Refugees and political asylum, Refugees & Political Asylum, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Diversity & Multiculturalism, Urban communities / city life, ART / Movements / Modernism