Hope and glory
Subtitle: Britain 1900-1990
By: Peter Clarke
Series: Penguin history of Britain -- 9
Publisher: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 454
Copyright date: 1996
Subjects: Great Britain -- History -- 20th century
First sentence: At the beginning of the twentieth century the British people had the testimony of their own eyes as well as that of the Bible for the fact that bread was the staff of life.
Description: In 1900 Britain was arguably the greatest power in the world - something that nobody seriously holds today. Instead, the titles of numerous books proclaim our obsession with the issue of national decline. The history of twentieth-century Britain sometimes threatens to become little else, focused on the question: where did it all go wrong?

Peter Clarke challenges this vision. Everyone can see that some relative decline in Britain's position during the century was inevitable. But a simple focus on decline implies a sort of history in which international rivalry, whether of a military, political or economic kind, is taken as the only story worth telling. He tells other stories too.

Hope and Glory explains the political changes that transformed Britain. It gives a clear account of the course of party politics, with vivid portraits of such leaders as Joseph Chamberlain, David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Harold Macmillan and Margaret Thatcher. It shows too how the outlook of ordinary people made a difference as, with the coming of an equal suffrage for men and women, democratic elections made and unmade Governments.

But Hope and Glory is not just a political history. It also makes sense of fundamental social and economic changes, which have shaped the modern family and gender roles within it, and it looks at jobs and prices, food and shelter, education and welfare. If culture for some people meant the Vorticists and Virginia Woolf, for others it meant football and films - all now recognized as part of the history of twentieth-century Britain as experienced by the three entire generations who lived through it.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 411-431) and index
Table of contents: title: Contents
pagenum: vii; title: Acknowledgments
pagenum: ix; title: Prologue
pagenum: 1; label: I
title: Hands Off the People's Food 1900–1908
pagenum: 7; label: 2
title: Wait and See 1908–16
pagenum: 40; label: 3
title: The Man Who Won the War 1916–22
pagenum: 77; label: 4
title: Safety First 1922–9
pagenum: 111; label: 5
title: Economic Blizzard 1929–37
pagenum: 144; label: 6
title: Guilty Men 1937–45
pagenum: 182; label: 7
title: Let Us Face the Future 1945–55
pagenum: 216; label: 8
title: Never Had It So Good 1955–63
pagenum: 248; label: 9
title: In Place of Strife 1963–70
pagenum: 283; label: 10
title: Winters of Discontent 1970–79
pagenum: 319; label: 11
title: Rejoice? 1949–90
pagenum: 358; title: Epilogue
pagenum: 401; label: Appendix
title: Governments and Electios 1895–1990
pagenum: 405; title: Bibliographical Essay
pagenum: 411; title: Index
pagenum: 433; title: Maps; label: 1
title: Great Britain and Northern Ireland
pagenum: x; label: 2
title: The British Empire in 1920
pagenum: 104