British Society Since 1945

A penetrating new study of Britain’s society and lifestyles since the Second World War

Some commentators contrast the great military victory in the Second World War with economic and political impotence in the early 1980s. Others compare the high ideals of 1945 with today’s shoddy market-oriented materialism. An essential theme in British Society Since 1945 is the question fundamental to all the political agonizing of right and left: ‘What went wrong?’

High and popular culture; family, class and race relations; sexual attitudes and material conditions; science and technology – the main social developments in these areas since 1945 are explored within a clear chronological framework. In a study that is lucid in outline and stimulating in detail, Arthur Marwick gives special attention to the upheavals of the sixties and discusses whether ‘stability’ and ‘consensus’ really are integral-and fruitful-features of life in Britain today.