Warfare State

A challenge to the central theme of the existing histories of twentieth-century Britain, that the British state was a welfare state, this book argues that it was also a warfare state, which supported a powerful armaments industry. This insight implies major revisions to our understanding of twentieth-century British history, from appeasement, to wartime industrial and economic policy, and the place of science and technology in government. David Edgerton also shows how British intellectuals came to think of the state in terms of welfare and decline, and includes a devastating analysis of C. P. Snow's two cultures. This groundbreaking book offers a new, post-welfarist and post-declinist, account of Britain, and an original analysis of the relations of science, technology, industry and the military. It will be essential reading for those working on the history and historiography of twentieth-century Britain, the historical sociology of war and the history of science and technology.

'Professor Edgerton has set himself a major task, to give 'an alternative account' of British history in the twentieth century … This is a truly challenging study which should become required reading for historians of twentieth century Britain.' Contemporary Review, ' … a highly detailed study, fiercely integrated with a raft of secondary work, which sustains a number of very broad conclusions with wide application: to the history of the British state; to the history of science and technology; and to the writing of history more generally.' Cultural and Social History, 'Michael Rustin 'Edgerton's well documented account of the place of warfare within the British state invites further rethinking of its nature and evolution'. Political Quarterly, 'This is a book that will feature on lists of essential reading for students of war.' War in History, 'Warfare State strikes an orthodoxy dead … one suspects that this book will have as fundamental an impact [as John Brewer's work on the 'fiscal-military state']' International History Review

David Edgerton is Hans Rausing Professor at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the Imperial College London. His previous publications include England and the Aeroplane: an Essay on a Militant and Technological Nation (1991) and Science, Technology and the British industrial 'Decline', 1870–1970 (1996).