Table of Contents

Introduction
1: The United Kingdom in 1951
2: The United Kingdom and the World
3: The Face of the Country
4: The Social Structure
5: Family and Welfare
6: Industry and Commerce
7: Intellect and Culture
8: Politics and Government
9: 'The Sixties'
10: Retrospect
Chronology
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Brian Harrison is Emeritus Professor of Modern British History at the University of Oxford. He has published on many aspects of British history from the 1790s to the present. His books include Drink and the Victorians (1971, second edition 1994) and The Transformation of British politics 1860-1995 (1996). From 2000-2004 he edited the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Reviews

`Full of surprising details and impressive insights... [a] monumentally impressive survey

'
Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times
`Harrison has a special gift which historians prize. He can turn the grains of history into fascinating and convincing patterns
'
Peter Hennessy, Times Literary Supplement
`Magnificent if demanding history... all couched in an enviable prose style... reader comes away from the text with a sense that he or she has learnt the history of a people, not just of its elite.

'
Neal Blewett, Australian Book Review
`The considerable strength of this book lies in its handling of social structure and institutions... Here Harrison is often at his brilliant best
'
Kenneth O. Morgan, Literary Review