The Morbid Age: Britain and the Crisis of Civilization, 1919-1939 Richard Overy The years between the wars in Britain saw a golden age of ideas, dominated by public figures such as George Orwell, Arnold Toynbee, H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley and Marie Stopes. Yet, as Richard Overy's highly enjoyable history shows, this was also an era of fear and paranoia, when Many believed that civilization faced a dystopian future of war, economic collapse and racial degeneration. Brilliantly evoking a Britain of BBC radio lectures, public debates, peace demonstrations, pamphleteers, psychoanalysts, anti-fascist volunteers, sex education manuals and science fiction, The Morbid Age reveals a time at once different from, and yet surprisingly similar to, our own.