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Stiff Upper Lip by Alex Renton

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Stiff Upper Lip

Author
Alex Renton
Narrator
David Thorpe
Publisher
Orion
Publish Date
13 April 2017
Run Time
11 hours 56 minutes
Format
Audiobook
Genre
Politics and government, Independent schools, private education, Moral and social purpose of education

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What to expect

This is the story of generations of parents, Britain's richest and grandest, who believed that being miserable at school was necessary to make a good and successful citizen. Childish suffering was a price they accepted for the preservation of their class, and their entitlement. The children who were moulded by this misery and abuse went on - as they still do - to run Britain's public institutions and private companies.

Confronting the truth of his own schooldays and the crimes he witnessed, Alex Renton has revealed a much bigger story. It is of a profound malaise in the British elite, shown up by tolerance of the abuse of its own children that amounts to collusion. This culture and its traditions, and the hypocrisy, cronyism and conspiracy that underpin them, are key to any explanation of the scandals over sexual abuse, violence and cover-up in child care institutions that are now shocking the nation.

As Renton shows, complicity in this is the bleak secret at the heart of today's British elite.

Read by David Thorpe.

(p) 2017 Orion Publishing Group

Critics Review

  • At last, a scrupulously honest insight into private boarding education in Britain - ranging from the abuse to which it subjects the child, and the family, to the abuse of Britain's social order in laying the foundation to buying your child's way to the top

    Jon Snow

  • Renton mixes memoir and anecdote with deeply researched history... this is a brave and necessary book

    GUARDIAN

  • A thoughtful and sensitive indictment of one of the cornerstones of the British establishment

    OBSERVER

  • Gruelling and gripping

    EVENING STANDARD

See more reviews
  • Renton has the thirst for truth, and for exposing depravity, of a Gitta Sereny

    THE TIMES

  • [A] masterful expose of private school perversion

    SKY NEWS

  • Stiff Upper Lip is shocking, gripping and sobering

    SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

  • Enormously valuable

    DAILY MAIL

  • Stiff Upper Lip kept me absolutely enthralled ... Even if you never went near a public school, the book is a phenomenal read: it kept me up all night

    NEWSTALK

  • Impressive in its breadth and depth

    DAILY EXPRESS

  • Stiff Upper Lip is a furious, closely researched polemic against boarding school

    COUNTRY LIFE

  • Quite breathtaking ... If you want to understand anything about institutional abuse it is required reading

    LBC

  • Grimly absorbing

    NEW STATESMAN

  • This is a fascinating book

    PROSPECT

  • Personal revelations are expertly woven into interview material, social history and theorising by psychologists and other writers ... Renton deserves praise and attention for disturbing our equanimity about this tradition

    FINANCIAL TIMES

  • This is a well-researched study, which draws on a variety of historical sources in addition to some searing near-contemporary accounts of childhood unhappiness and its long-lasting effects

    THE TABLET

  • Brilliantly deconstructs the myth of the British stiff upper lip

    Rod Liddle

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Details
Author
Alex Renton
Narrator
David Thorpe
Duration
11 hours 56 minutes
Release Date
13 April 2017
ISBN
9781409160939
Format
Audiobook
Publisher
Orion
Genre
Politics and government, Independent schools, private education, Moral and social purpose of education

Synopsis

This is the story of generations of parents, Britain's richest and grandest, who believed that being miserable at school was necessary to make a good and successful citizen. Childish suffering was a price they accepted for the preservation of their class, and their entitlement. The children who were moulded by this misery and abuse went on - as they still do - to run Britain's public institutions and private companies.Confronting the truth of his own schooldays and the crimes he witnessed, Alex Renton has revealed a much bigger story. It is of a profound malaise in the British elite, shown up by tolerance of the abuse of its own children that amounts to collusion. This culture and its traditions, and the hypocrisy, cronyism and conspiracy that underpin them, are key to any explanation of the scandals over sexual abuse, violence and cover-up in child care institutions that are now shocking the nation.As Renton shows, complicity in this is the bleak secret at the heart of today's British elite.Read by David Thorpe.(p) 2017 Orion Publishing Group

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