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Behind Closed Doors

By: Seth Alexander Thévoz
Narrated by: Seth Alexander Thévoz
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Summary

With a keen eye for the juicy anecdote, Thévoz tells the fascinating and entertaining story of the rise, decline and resurgence of London's private members' clubs, from the late-eighteenth century to the present day. In doing so he looks at cultural and political developments beyond the clubs, revealing how while the clubs may have been products of their city and country, they also exerted significant influence on London, Britain and places far beyond.

This is a chronicle, as informative as it is entertaining, of the ups and downs of London clubland, and how it had an impact on parts of the world far from London. It is packed with amusing anecdotes and illustrative examples of the growth of this quirky, unique institution, which grew to spread around the world. London, though, with its four hundred clubs, was always at its heart.

Thévoz reveals how everything we might have thought we knew about these clubs is wrong. They may have started out as white, male, aristocratic watering holes - but that's only part of the story. All sections of society built their own clubs and lived their lives there: highbrow and lowbrow; women and men; working-class, middle-class and upper-class; international and British. The club has been central to a distinctively British form of leisure over more than three centuries.

Behind Closed Doors is a distillation of a decade of research and notes on London clubs, based on exclusive behind-the-scenes access to archives and proceedings, as well as a love of gossip and scandal.

©2022 Seth Alexander Thévoz (P)2023 Hachette Audio UK
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History
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An utterly riveting read

Insightful and engaging throughout. Loved the playful humour of the author. The narration is superb.

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Funny and great delivery

Thévoz takes an unassuming subject - private members’ clubs - and turns it into a sparkling narrative full of unexpected anecdotes and funny asides. Entertaining and intriguing read.

The performance was lovely - great voice!

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A useful primer to clubland

This book is a really useful primer to clubland and hints at future opportunities to explore the social aspects of power in the rest of London, Parliament, the City and political parties are similarly weird and similarly influential.

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