British and Public Policy 1776–1939: An Economic, Social and Political Perspective

Publisher:

Cambridge University Press

Publication date:

August 2012

March 1983

ISBN:

9780511608001

9780521270861

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511608001

Dimensions:

Weight & Pages:

Dimensions:

(228 x 152 mm)

Weight & Pages:

0.722kg, 444 Pages

Subjects:: British History after 1450, History, Economic History

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Subjects:: British History after 1450, History, Economic History

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The evolution of British public policy through the industrial revolution, the Victorian age and the inter-war years to 1939 is an essential element of British history. It is also a necessary preliminary to the understanding of today's policy choices as they confront governments. It has not previously been viewed as a totality, embodying the economic aspects, both macro and micro, together with social and welfare provision and the patterns of ideas affecting both. Sydney Checkland's treatment, first published in 1983, embraces all these aspects, and is set within the changing configuration of class and politics as the franchise extended. As successive governments responded to these challenges they sought to improve the operation of the market economy and to ease the social pressures that it generated. They had to find an acceptable level of consent to what they were doing; this often involved limiting the choices of individuals and of groups. Of the latter, in large-scale business the trade unions were an increasing problem. Reciprocally these interests tried both to limit the actions of governments as these affected themselves and, indeed, to influence the general course of policy. Account is taken of the fact that Britain was not one nation, but four, each with its perspective and aspirations. The pattern increases in complexity with the passage of time, so that the discussion of the First World War and the troubled decades of the twenties and thirties comprise the largest section of the book.

‘ … has the merits of a first-rate textbook: comprehensive, reliable and clear, it deals effectively with difficult issues without obscuring or over-simplifying them.’

Source: New Society

‘The strength of the work lies in its remarkable coherence … culminating in a wonderfully lucid presentation of the economic and social policy agenda as it had evolved by 1939. Such orderliness will make this a useful book for students.’

Source: The Times Higher Education Supplement

‘ … the book is a tour de force’.

Source: The Times Literary Supplement

‘ … an impressive monument to the traditional skills of the best economic and social historians.’

Source: Economica

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British and Public Policy 1776–1939

An Economic, Social and Political Perspective

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