Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize Winner of the NCR Award for Non-Fiction
From the high politics of Court and Cabinet room to the kitchen or the queue, Peter Hennessy's Never Again: Britain 1945-51, the first part of his Post-War Trilogy, recreates life in early post-war Britain.
'Hennessy conjures up the Attlee years more vividly than any previous writer' Ben Pimlott, Guardian At the end of the Second World War Britain was in flux. It was an age of rationing and rebuilding; when hope for a better future contrasted with the horror of war. Fresh ideals emerged during the common experience of the conflict and the new, widespread belief that everyone should be treated equally led to the creation of the 'welfare state' and the NHS, despite tough economic circumstances. Internationally, Britain was finding a place in a world increasingly overshadowed by Cold War with the Soviet Union. 'A joy to read' Sunday Times 'Hennessy is never for a moment dull' Philip Ziegler, Daily Telegraph 'Hennessy is the antithesis of the dry-as-dust academic historian. He laughs a great deal, and punctuates his writing with cheery and illuminating anecdotes' Ian Aitken, Guardian 'A sympathetic, highly readable, meticulously researched account of the Cabinet room politics and popular habits of life and recreation during the high noon of Labourism' Roy Jenkins, Observer
Peter Hennessy is one of Britain's leading political historians and journalists and this work is one of the finest examinations of Britain in the post-WWII world, both in terms of the elites and the ordinary citizen. Hennessy has a real talent not only for sorting out and assembling the hard dry facts, but also painting portraits of the leading figures of the Atlee government. While Atlee himself remains remote (as he was in life), Cripps, Ernest Bevin, and Dalton all emerge as fascinating figures. There are few books written on post war Britain that are as well researched and as compelling as this one.
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