Just Finished Reading: Strange Days Indeed – The Golden Age of Paranoia by Francis Wheen



Yet again it was rather odd – almost like déjà vu in fact – reading a history book about a time I lived through. The 1970’s where strange days indeed, at least in the US and UK – the two countries the author concentrates on. Switching between Nixon (was that man bat-shit crazy or what?) and our very own Harold Wilson, Wheen shows just how much paranoia infected the mind-sets of western leaders of the day.


Of course being paranoid didn’t mean that people were not out to get the leaders of the US and UK governments. They most certainly were. However, there is normally, and should be, a difference between having understandable enemies – these were politicians after all – and seeing everyone as enemies. Nixon in particular (my American readers are probably much more aware of this) seemed to spend most of his time in office ‘off the reservation’ in a way I almost totally unaware of. Likewise I was completely unaware of the crazy goings on inside No 10 Downing Street as the Labour leader Wilson tried to hold his party, his government and the country together against inside and outside forces trying to bring him down. At the same time we had people like Uri Geller spreading his ideas of spoon bending which countless millions believed, attempted prosecutions of radical sexual publications, and an explosion of terrorism across Europe from the Red Brigades to our very own Angry Brigade (or more aptly the bit miffed Brigade…..). Then of course there was the ever present fear of nuclear annihilation with 4 minutes warning. No wonder people were slightly off their rockers back then – and that probably including me!


This is both a fascinating and highly amusing book, made more so by my own memories of the time. Anyone who lived through what the author rightly describes as ‘the decade that sanity forgot’ – just think of the music and the fashion – will find this hugely entertaining and all the more interesting as we begin to seemingly be living through a strange replay of the age. Highly recommended as is his previous book How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World.