Battle for Britain

"The Battle for Britain" aims to re-assess the impact of the Second World War upon changes in ideology and social policy in Britain. In particular, it analyzes the mixed and often contradictory pressures influencing the formation of post-war social democratic "consensus" and the expansion of social citizenship under a welfare state. However, whilst in these respects the book offers a social history of the period, the authors' main purpose is to mount a critique of the Thatcher years which have castigated in principle and dismantled in practice the post-war social reconstruction. With hindsight it is suggested that the postwar consensus to 1979 represented an ideological deviation in the history of British class politics and the Conservative party itself until Mrs Thatcher's social and economic policies restored continuity with the ruling assumptions of the past.

David Morgan is director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Kent., Mary Evans teaches Women's Studies and Sociology at the University of Kent.