The Connell Short Guide to Britain After World War II

In 1945 Britain emerged from the most devastating war the world has ever seen. Though victorious, the country was severely in debt, had suffered major structural damage and was overshadowed, in terms of world status, by the rise of the superpowers. Yet the 20 years that followed were astonishingly successful. Eric Hobsbawn has called the 1950s and 1960s a “golden age” of prosperity and affluence. In this short, incisive guide, the historian Simon Abernethy tells the story of Britain after World War Two and asks: was Harold Macmillan right when he remarked in a famous speech that Britain “had never had it so good”?