Aging in Twentieth-Century Britain

Aging in Twentieth-Century Britain
Author: Charlotte Greenhalgh
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2018-06-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520970802

As today’s baby boomers reach retirement and old age, this timely study looks back at the first generation who aged in the British welfare state. Using innovative research methods, Charlotte Greenhalgh sheds light on the experiences of elderly people in twentieth-century Britain. She adds further insights from the interviews and photographs of celebrated social scientists such as Peter Townsend, whose work helped transform care of the aged. A comprehensive and sensitive examination of the creative pursuits, family relations, work lives, health, and living conditions of the elderly, Aging in Twentieth-Century Britain charts the determined efforts of aging Britons to shape public understandings of old age in the modern era.

The Neoliberal Age?

The Neoliberal Age?
Author: Aled Davies
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2021-12-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 178735685X

The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries are commonly characterised as an age of ‘neoliberalism’ in which individualism, competition, free markets and privatisation came to dominate Britain’s politics, economy and society. This historical framing has proven highly controversial, within both academia and contemporary political and public debate. Standard accounts of neoliberalism generally focus on the influence of political ideas in reshaping British politics; according to this narrative, neoliberalism was a right-wing ideology, peddled by political economists, think-tanks and politicians from the 1930s onwards, which finally triumphed in the 1970s and 1980s. The Neoliberal Age? suggests this narrative is too simplistic. Where the standard story sees neoliberalism as right-wing, this book points to some left-wing origins, too; where the standard story emphasises the agency of think-tanks and politicians, this book shows that other actors from the business world were also highly significant. Where the standard story can suggest that neoliberalism transformed subjectivities and social lives, this book illuminates other forces which helped make Britain more individualistic in the late twentieth century. The analysis thus takes neoliberalism seriously but also shows that it cannot be the only explanatory framework for understanding contemporary Britain. The book showcases cutting-edge research, making it useful to researchers and students, as well as to those interested in understanding the forces that have shaped our recent past.

Britain in Transition

Britain in Transition
Author: Alfred F. Havighurst
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 714
Release: 1985-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780226319711

This new edition extends and brings up to date the story of political, economic, and social change among the British. An entirely new chapter covers the Thatcher years, discussing such events as the Falkland Island crisis and the General Election of 1983. Other sections have been revised to reflect information only recently available. Throughout, Havighurst has incorporated material from official documents, monographs, biographies, articles, and the press. His fascinating narrative fully captures the ongoing importance of change itself in shaping the character of Britain.

Twentieth-Century Britain: A Very Short Introduction

Twentieth-Century Britain: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Kenneth O. Morgan
Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks
Total Pages: 142
Release: 2000-08-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 019285397X

First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, Kenneth Morgan's Very Short Introduction to Twentieth-Century Britain is a crisp analysis of the forces of consensus and of conflict in modern Britain since the First World War.

The Age of Decadence

The Age of Decadence
Author: Simon Heffer
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 912
Release: 2021-04-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1643136712

A richly detailed history of Britain at its imperial zenith, revealing the simmering tensions and explosive rivalries beneath the opulent surface of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. The popular memory of Britain in the years before the Great War is of a powerful, contented, orderly, and thriving country. Britain commanded a vast empire: she bestrode international commerce. Her citizens were living longer, profiting from civil liberties their grandparents only dreamed of and enjoying an expanding range of comforts and pastimes. The mood of pride and self-confidence can be seen in Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance marches, newsreels of George V’s coronation, and London’s great Edwardian palaces. Yet beneath the surface things were very different In The Age of Decadence, Simon Heffer exposes the contradictions of late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain. He explains how, despite the nation’s massive power, a mismanaged war against the Boers in South Africa created profound doubts about her imperial destiny. He shows how attempts to secure vital social reforms prompted the twentieth century’s gravest constitutional crisis—and coincided with the worst industrial unrest in British history. He describes how politicians who conceded the vote to millions more men disregarded women so utterly that female suffragists’ public protest bordered on terrorism. He depicts a ruling class that fell prey to degeneracy and scandal. He analyses a national psyche that embraced the motor-car, the sensationalist press, and the science fiction of H. G. Wells, but also the nostalgia of A. E. Housman.

Age of Promises

Age of Promises
Author: David Thackeray
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2021
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198843038

Age of Promises explores the issue of electoral promises in twentieth century Britain - how they were made, how they were understood, and how they evolved across time - through a study of general election manifestos and election addresses. The authors argue that a history of the act of making promises - which is central to the political process, but which has not been sufficiently analysed - illuminates the development of political communication and democratic representation. The twentieth century saw a broad shift away from politics viewed as a discursive process whereby, at elections, it was enough to set out broad principles, with detailed policymaking to follow once in office following reflection and discussion. Over the first part of the century parties increasingly felt required to compile lists of specific policies to offer to voters, which they were then considered to have an obligation to carry out come what may. From 1945 onwards, moreover, there was even more focus on detailed, costed, pledges. We live in an age of growing uncertainty over the authority and status of political promises. In the wake of the 2016 EU referendum controversy erupted over parliamentary sovereignty. Should 'the will of the people' as manifested in the referendum result be supreme, or did MPs owe a primary responsibility to their constituents and/or to the party manifestos on which they had been elected? Age of Promises demonstrates that these debates build on a long history of differing understandings about what status of manifestos and addresses should have in shaping the actions of government.

Britain in the Twentieth Century

Britain in the Twentieth Century
Author: Charles More
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2014-05-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317867777

In a century of rapid social change, the British people have experienced two world wars, the growth of the welfare state and the loss of Empire. Charles More looks at these and other issues in a comprehensive study of Britain’s political, economic and social history throughout the twentieth century. This accessible new book also engages with topical questions such as the impact of the Labour party and the role of patriotism in British identity.

The Routledge Concise History of Twentieth-century British Literature

The Routledge Concise History of Twentieth-century British Literature
Author: Ashley Dawson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 0415572452

In The Routledge Concise History of Twentieth-Century British Literature Ashley Dawson identifies the key British writers and texts, shaped by era-defining cultural and historical events and movements from the period. He provides: Analysis of works by a diverse range of influential authors Examination of the cultural and literary impact of crucial historical, social, political and cultural events Discussion of Britain's imperial status in the century and the diversification of the nation through Black and Asian British Literature Readers are also provided with a comprehensive timeline, a glossary of terms, further reading and explanatory text boxes featuring further information on key figures and events.

The Gold Standard at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

The Gold Standard at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Author: Steven Bryan
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2010-08-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 0231526334

By the end of the nineteenth century, the world was ready to adopt the gold standard out of concerns of national power, prestige, and anti-English competition. Yet although the gold standard allowed countries to enact a virtual single world currency, the years before World War I were not a time of unfettered liberal economics and one-world, one-market harmony. Outside of Europe, the gold standard became a tool for nationalists and protectionists primarily interested in growing domestic industry and imperial expansion. This overlooked trend, provocatively reassessed in Steven Bryan's well-documented history, contradicts our conception of the gold standard as a British-based system infused with English ideas, interests, and institutions. In countries like Japan and Argentina, where nationalist concerns focused on infant-industry protection and the growth of military power, the gold standard enabled the expansion of trade and the goals of the age: industry and empire. Bryan argues that these countries looked less to Britain and more to North America and the rest of Europe for ideological models. Not only does this history challenge our idealistic notions of the prewar period, but it also reorients our understanding of the history that followed. Policymakers of the 1920s latched onto the idea that global prosperity before World War I was the result of a system dominated by English liberalism. Their attempt to reproduce this triumph helped bring about the global downturn, the Great Depression, and the collapse of the interwar world.

Lone Motherhood in Twentieth-Century Britain

Lone Motherhood in Twentieth-Century Britain
Author: Kathleen Kiernan
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 286
Release: 1998-05-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191037583

During the 1990s lone mothers reached the top of the political agenda, viewed as both a drain on public expenditure and a moral threat. What has been missing from the debate is an understanding of how we have got to where we are. This timely new study, by three leading experts in the field, sets out first to investigate the demographics of lone motherhood - how the pathways into lone motherhood have changed, and whether the changes of the last quarter of a century are as dramatic as they appear. Second, it looks at the wider context for the changes in lone motherhood in terms of ideas about marriage, and the changes in the construction of the never-married mother, from victim in the 1950s to parasite in the late 1980s. Finally, it examines the way in which policies have defined the problem of lone motherhood over time and the way in which lone mothers have been treated with regard to housing, social security, and employment. The study concludes that there is little possiblility of putting the genie back in the bottle in terms of reducing the number of lone mothers - efforts to do so by reducing public expenditure on them may be effective, but at the expense of the children involved. Instead, the authors urge policy-makers to change focus again, and pay more attention to investing in children.