‘Jerusalem’ has become one of the best-known poems in the English language. And, set to music, has become the unofficial English national anthem. But what is the story behind its strange words? And how did it come to strike such a powerful chord with the nation, uniting left and right, republicans and monarchists alike? Penned in 1804 by the radical poet William Blake, as he sat in a cramped room near London’s Oxford Street, it is a call for personal struggle to transform England into the paradise it was somehow meant to be. But Blake had no idea that these few stanzas would hold such national importance two hundred years on. Over 100 years after Blake wrote it, ‘Jerusalem’ was rediscovered, and used to whip up patriotic fervour during the First World War. As the battlefield losses mounted to a horrific scale in the early weeks of 1915, there was a desperate need to keep up national spirits. It was sent to the composer, Sir Hubert Parry, who transformed it into a soaring song, designed to unite the nation. Since then, it has been sung by socialists and conservatives alike, by patriots and feminists and dreamers, partly because the words are obscure enough to satisfy everybody, and partly because the tune is stirring enough to have emerged as an alternative national anthem. 'Jerusalem' is the compelling story of that song, and the men who created it. David Boyle's work has been widely ‘The tone of the book may be gloomy but there is plenty of entertainment value …’ Anne Ashworth, The Times ‘Exhilarating’ Daily Mail ‘He tells these stories, on the whole persuasively and with some startling asides.’ New Statesman ‘A book that is engagingly sensitive to the sentiments of what is sometimes called “middle England”’ Dominic Lawson, Sunday Times David Boyle is a British author and journalist who writes mainly about history and new ideas in economics, money, business and culture. He lives in Crystal Palace, London. His books include ‘Alan Unlocking the Enigma’, ‘Peace on The Christmas Truce of 1914’, ‘Unheard Warfare in the Dardanelles’, ‘Towards the Setting The Race for America’ and ‘The Age to Come’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.
Author
David Boyle is the author of Blondel’s Song: The Capture, Imprisonment and Ransom of Richard the Lionheart, and a series of books about history, social change and the future. His book Authenticity: Brands, Fakes, Spin and the Lust for Real Life helped put the search for authenticity on the agenda as a social phenomenon. The Tyranny of Numbers and The Sum of Our Discontent predicted the backlash against the government’s target culture. Funny Money launched the time banks movement in the UK. David is an associate of the new economics foundation, the pioneering think-tank in London, and has been at the heart of the effort to introduce time banks to Britain as a critical element of public service reform - since when the movement has grown to more than 100 projects in the UK. He is also the founder of the London Time Bank network and co-founder of Time Banks UK. He writes about the future of volunteering, cities and business. His work on the future of money has also been covered in books and pamphlets like Why London Needs its own Currency (nef, 2000), Virtual Currencies (Financial Times, 2000), The Money Changers: Currency reform from Aristotle to e-cash (Earthscan, 2002) and The Little Money Book (Alastair Sawday, 2003). He has written for many national newspapers and magazines, and edited a range of magazines including Town & Country Planning and Liberal Democrat News. He is the editor of Radical Economics. He lives in Crystal Palace, in south London, with Sarah and Robin (two years old). He is a member of the Federal Policy Committee of the Liberal Democrats and he stood for Parliament in Regents Park and Kensington North in 2001.
