20th Century British History - General & Miscellaneous, 20th Century British History - Monarchy, 20th Century British History - World War II, World War II - Resolution & Aftermath, Great Britain - World War II

Never Again: Britain, 1945-1951

Name: Never Again: Britain, 1945-1951
Author: Peter Hennessy
ISBN: 9780679433637

by Peter Hennessy

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Overview

Authoritative, powerfully engaging, and highly readable - winner of England's most prestigious prize for nonfiction, the NCR Award - Never Again is the definitive history of a crucial moment in twentieth-century England: the years 1945 to 1951, when Britain established a welfare state even as it withdrew from the Empire. After the ordeal of World War II, world-class historian Peter Hennessy notes, the British "were driven not merely by the pressing need to turn rubble into factories and homes and roads, but...to ensure that never again would slump and economic depression be allowed to distil the social poison that made fascism possible." With this mandate, the Labour administration under Clement Attlee established the National Health Service; nationalized the Bank of England, the railroad, and the steel, coal, gas and electric industries; and constructed the welfare state - an ambitious undertaking of social change "on a scale and a duration never surpassed in the nation's history." Yet successive financial crises, the Cold War threat and the need for rearmament, new foreign competition for its industries, the country's ambivalence toward union with Europe and its refusal to acknowledge its diminished status as a world power - all sent Britain's economy into decline, with many of the goals of social reform left unrealized. Hennessy provides a comprehensive account of life in Britain during this pivotal era, from the highest levels of government - with intimate portraits of the major figures of the time, such as Attlee, Nye Bevan, Ernest Bevin, Lord Franks, and Lord Plowden - to the experiences of ordinary people; from bread rationing to "welfare" orange juice; from the jitterbug to the "Goon Show"; from the "New Look" in fashion to the comedies of Ealing Studios. Lucid, engrossing, and elegantly written, Never Again is a tour de force of narrative history.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In a lively, stirring history of the postwar epoch that molded Britain's baby boomer generation, Hennessy argues that Britain's economic decline was far from inevitable. Despite a more than adequate industrial base, postwar Britain slipped from superpowerdom, in his view, because of a refusal to abandon its dreams of global empire (notwithstanding the relinquishing of India and Palestine) and because of the increasing economic strain imposed by the Cold War. Professor of contemporary history at the University of London, Hennessy shuttles between high politics and everyday experience, illuminating the Labour Party's ascent, Britain's emergence as a nuclear power, popular culture in the pre-television era, and what he sees as the period's crowning achievement--a national welfare program encompassing universal health benefits, social security, unemployment insurance and aid for housing and education. Photos. (Apr.)

Library Journal

``We are the masters now'' was (so legend has it) the cry thrown across the aisle by the newly elected Labour Government in 1945 at the ``guilty men'' of the prewar years. The Labour Manifesto had declared that the party of Clement Attlee, Ernest Bevin, et al. was ``Socialist'' and ``proud of it.'' The nationalization of some industries and the construction of the welfare state were greeted as a ``peaceful revolution'' ushering in a ``collectivist'' period. But as well-regarded historian Hennessy (Univ. of London) makes clear in this personal, measured, comprehensive history, there is every reason to see the 1945-51 period as less than Socialist and more as a last gasp of late Victorian reformism. If these difficult years laid the foundation for ``never again,'' returning to the harsh class-divided pre-1939 years, they fell short by adhering to illusions that Britain, whose international and economic star was already waning, could ill afford. This is no work of academic history but a necessary part of today's post-Thatcher debate. Covering both the domestic front and foreign affairs, this very readable work is wonderfully full of drama, anecdote, and personality.-- H. Steck, SUNY-Cortland

Jay Freeman

Following the drama and exhilaration of Britain's life-and-death struggle with Hitler, the period that witnessed the establishment of the welfare state and the beginning of the disestablishment of the empire might seem uninteresting and certainly uninspiring. Yet Hennessy, a skilled journalist and an outstanding historian, has done a masterly job of bringing this era to life. By shifting between the narrative of major events and the experiences and recollections of ordinary participants, he maintains both a personal touch and a sense of context. Hennessy reveals a finely honed grasp of historical irony as he shows (with the benefit of hindsight) that trends now regarded as logical and inevitable were actually the result of policies instituted by men who hoped to achieve just the opposite effect; for example, few politicians of any stripe saw the independence of India as leading to the dissolution of the empire, and many seriously believed it would strengthen British power in sub-Saharan Africa. For both scholars and laypersons, Hennessy has provided a lucid and highly informative glimpse at an often neglected period.