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The People's Peace - British History 1945-1989 (Hardcover, New) Loot Price: R2,488
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The People's Peace - British History 1945-1989 (Hardcover, New): Kenneth O. Morgan

The People's Peace - British History 1945-1989 (Hardcover, New)

Kenneth O. Morgan

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Was R2,676 Loot Price R2,488 Discovery Miles 24 880 | Repayment Terms: R233 pm x 12* You Save R188 (7%)

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Here, Morgan (Principal of The Univ. College of Wales, Albertswyth) presents a fine scholarly narrative history of postwar Britain. Morgan claims that WW II's great moral achievement was the spirit of national unity that brought British classes together in a people's war. Ideally, a People's Peace would follow, when Attlee's new Labour government of 1945, backed by powerful trade unions and Keynesian economic theories, promised to redress inequalities of class and region. But instead, Morgan finds, cracks in the "mask of unity" developed when shortages and austerity persisted into the postwar years. Rising taxes, inflation, bureaucracies, public debt, and trade deficits brought the Conservatives to power, which compromised socialist trends. Morgan recounts how patricians and others mourned the retreat from Empire that culminated in the disaster at Suez, and he discusses the revival of nationalism in deprived Celtic areas of Scotland and Wales and the racism that followed the waves of black and Asian immigration. Finally, Morgan describes the toppling of Wilson's Labour regime by strikes and economic decline, and its replacement by the Thatcher group and the rising middle classes. He concludes that the average Briton, despite problems, enjoyed a time of peace and stability in these times, while not missing the burdens of Empire. Comprehensive and well-detailed, as Morgan illuminates the complacency of British society and the irony of Britain's decline in the postwar world in contrast to the rise of defeated Germany and Japan. (Kirkus Reviews)
Kenneth Morgan has won wide acclaim as one of the finest historians of twentieth century Britain. His works have been hailed as "history at its very best" by New Society--the finest combination of rigorous scholarship and lucid, enjoyable writing. Now comes The People's Peace, the most comprehensive and authoritative look at post-war Britain ever written.
In The People's Peace, Morgan paints a richly detailed portrait of British social and political history from the end of the Second World War up through the rule of Margaret Thatcher. It was a time when the British, having pulled together to win what was called "the people's war," looked forward to a people's peace--a peace of plenty and equality, provided by the Labour government's dramatic new welfare programs. But Morgan shows how the nation staggered under the debt of the war, struggling to rebuild its economy for a rapidly changing world. He examines Britain's fitful retreat from its imperial legacy, depicting the surprising popularity of the withdrawal from India and other colonies, and the shock of the Suez Crisis--when the U.S. made Britain's reduced role in the world painfully clear. Morgan also provides an insightful look at the changing popular culture, from the Teddy Boys to the massive adulation of the Beatles, as well as rising consumerism, permissiveness, and the ugly racism that met the tide of African, Asian, and Caribbean immigrants.
From the debates over the welfare state, to the Profumo scandal, to the disillusionment with Wilson's chaotic Labour regime (leading to rumors of a military coup), to the crisis of strikes and economic decline that brought Margaret Thatcher to power, Morgan provides a lucid narrative of Britain's post-war politics. Even after Thatcher's apparent revival of the U.K.'s vitality, he writes, it still remains a land of tremendous inequality, split between a decaying industrial north and a growing high-tech south, the Celtic fringe and English heartland, the well-paid and the unemployed--locked into decades-old patterns. "In forty-four years," he writes, "the British had yet to recover from victory in the Second World War, even though the Germans and Japanese had so manifestly recovered from defeat."

General

Imprint: Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Release date: October 1990
First published: 1991
Authors: Kenneth O. Morgan (Principal)
Dimensions: 241 x 165 x 41mm (L x W x T)
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 572
Edition: New
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-822764-9
Categories: Books > Humanities > History > British & Irish history > General
Books > Humanities > History > World history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945
Books > History > British & Irish history > General
Books > History > World history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945
LSN: 0-19-822764-7
Barcode: 9780198227649

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