A couple of those reviews have said that I take too parochial a view, that I'm overly focussed on Britain. Which is certainly true, but then the subtitle of the book is Britain in the 1990s, which kind of gives the game away. There is a chapter on foreign policy and one on Europe (a theme which runs through much of the rest as well), but the emphasis is very definitely on the home front. That's what interests me.
And, in the 1990s, it was what interested the public as well. 'The TV programmes, the music, the films he discusses are all British,' complained David Aaronovitch in The Times; 'the popular culture the British people actually consumed wasn't.'
But Aaronovitch is wrong. The biggest groups of the decade (in Britain) were Take That and the Spice Girls, Blur, Oasis and Radiohead. The most watched TV shows remained EastEnders and Coronation Street, alongside The Darling Buds of May and One Foot in the Grave. Even the British film industry came up with Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Full Monty and Trainspotting, all of which did remarkably good business at the box-office. Of course they didn't eclipse the takings of Titanic, but even I would struggle to find anything to say about Titanic, except that it confirms what we've always known - that people like a massive disaster movie, particularly if it's got a romantic subject.
The point of cultural history is not simply to list what was big and successful; that's what reference books are for. It's to understand how popular culture reflects and shapes society. That means that a premium is bound to be placed on home-grown products, unless they seem to represent a wider trend: Dallas and Dynasty, say, or the films of Stallone and Schwarzenegger in the 1980s.
One other complaint that has surfaced is the lack of space accorded to the internet. There might be some truth in this, but I think it's worth remembering that I end my account in the middle of 2001. The internet was then by no means universal, and most of those British homes that were connected to what some were still calling the information superhighway relied on dial-up modems.
This was before the launch, for example, of MySpace (2003), Facebook (2004) and Twitter (2006). Most of those off-line companies that had an internet presence had little or no idea what to do with their sites - they just felt they ought to have them. It was clear that the internet was going to change things, possibly in a way not seen since the invention of printing, but it was far from obvious how this would manifest itself. Indeed, I think it's still far too early to say.
So I mention the internet as a looming presence on the horizon, but since my (self-appointed) brief is to document how things seemed at the time, it's not much more than that.
The one place where the internet was a really serious issue was in the world of the news media, which were both enthusiastic about the new medium and fearful of what it might bring. I wonder whether those reviewers who identify my lack of coverage have a slightly distorted perception of its scale in 1990s Britain because they were working in an industry that was so closely affected.
Whilst writing about the reviews thus far, I ought to thank a couple of reviewers who have contacted me personally. Richard Ryder very courteously wrote to explain that his review had been subbed and his good words about the book had been lost. Matthew Engel wrote to point out some errors that had crept in. I'd wrongly referred to Alan Clark's wife as Anne rather than Jane, and talked about Lord Salisbury in 1812 instead of Lord Liverpool (well, you've seen one cathedral city...) - these will be changed in subsequent editions.
But mostly I want to thank all those who have been kind enough to read the book and review it. It's had more widespread coverage than I've ever received before, and for that I am deeply indebted to Jessica Axe at Aurum, who has been absolutely splendid and tireless.
