This 1990 book is a comprehensive study of government reactions to the interwar unemployment problem. Drawing upon an extensive range of primary and secondary sources, it analyses official ameliorative policy towards unemployment and contemporary reactions to such intervention. In doing so, it highlights the struggle that emerged between conventional economic thinking and the calls made by radical economists, industrialists and politicians (including Keynes, Mosley and Lloyd George) for the state to play a more determinant role in economic recovery. There is detailed treatment of the nature and scale of interwar unemployment, regional policy and the complex history of unemployment assistance. In addition, careful study is made of the impact which unemployment had in influencing the conduct of public policy in related areas of economic concern, including industrial policy, overseas trade, colonial development, wage determination, labour supply and the content and purpose of monetary and fiscal policy.

Japan stunned both itself and the Western world by its capacity within a few decades of wartime defeat to mount a serious challenge to American hegemony. However, it became incapable of fully adjusting to shifting economic circumstances once an accommodating international environment faded, with doleful consequences.

Despite the dominance of unemployment in the historiography of interwar Britain, there is as yet no comprehensive single volume study of government reactions to the problem over the entire period down to 1939. British Unemployment 1919-1939 aims to fill that gap. W.R. Garside draws upon an extensive range of primary and secondary sources to analyze official ameliorative policy toward unemployment and contemporary reactions to such intervention. He assesses the nature and scale of interwar unemployment assistance. Careful study is also made of the impact of unemployment on related areas of economic concerns such as monetary and fiscal policy, industrial change, overseas trade, colonial development, labor supply and the impact of collective bargaining. Comprehensive, informative and clearly written, this book is the fullest account of policy responses to unemployment in the interwar period. It will be invaluable to specialists in recent British economic history and public policy, as well as an essential reference work for students coming to the subject for the first time.