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Austerity Britain, 1945-1951 (Tales of a New Jerusalem) | 
| Author: David Kynaston
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Category: Book
List Price: £9.99
Buy New: £5.97
You Save: £4.02 (40%)
New (13) Used (1) from £5.97
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 1297
Media: Paperback
Pages: 704
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 4.9 x 1.9
ISBN: 0747599238
EAN: 9780747599234
ASIN: 0747599238
Publication Date: October 6, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Comprehensive but strangely uninspiring account May 7, 2008
9 out of 13 found this review helpful
No-one could fault the time and effort that have gone into producing this extensive work but the sheer volume of facts, figures and comments might well prove mind-numbing to the average reader and certainly led to me - who can just remember the period in question - losing interest and scanning through pages looking for the essence amongst innumerable details. A great resource for a student of the times but not for those seeking a general account of these important years.
 A Very Enjoyable Trip Through Late 40s Britain December 16, 2007
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
This compilation of two books covering the period 1945 - 51 and intended to be the first two parts of a work that will progress to 1979, is very enjoyable and sweeps the reader along at a great pace. The daunting 632 pages thus become quite manageable. Kynaston covers the actions of the major movers and shakers in the government and in sport, architecture, industry and the unions, and the literary world. These action are contrasted with the feelings and attitudes of the people on the receiving end as judged by diarists and the results of the Mass Observation exercise that was still in place. Kynaston handles this wealth of material with great skill and moves through all these areas with great aplomb such that the narrative never becomes boring or a disjointed list of different topics.
Minor criticisms of this otherwise excellent book from someone who lived through the period might include a little too much space given to racial attitudes and a failure to really capture the feeling and appearance of bombed cities. There is also a failure to capture the atmosphere of a hospital of the time which was, of course, completely different to today, or the fear of unwanted pregnancy. There is also a tendency to anticipate new building that only really became significant after 1951. Nevertheless, these are relatively minor quibbles and I commend this book as a great read to all those interested in UK domestic history of the late 1940s, and look forward to further instalments.
 Wonderful instructive and entertaining history December 9, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I was aged ten in 1945 and experienced this period of British history and found this brilliant in its accurate depiction of everyday life, account of the political scene and the birth of the welfare state. Read it and understand where a lot of those chickens (good and bad) now roosting on this sceptred isle came from.
An outstanding study of a changing nation October 21, 2007
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
David Kynaston begins his book, the first of a planned multi-volume survey of Britain, on a high note by chronicling the celebrations of V-E Day. It is a joyous starting point for his ambitious goal, which is to chart the evolution of the nation from the end of the Second World War to the election of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in 1979. It is an era that began with the commitment to nationalizing industries and creating the modern welfare state and ended with a government winning power with a promise to undo many of these programs, and Kynaston plans to show how the country developed over this period. This he does by focusing on the people who lived in those times, drawing from the early work of Mass-Observation, contemporary press accounts and the private writings of diarists to provide a sprawling portrait of Britain in the late 1940s.
What particularly stands out is how much different the nation was back then. The Britain that emerges from these pages is a nation driven by an industrial economy, with an overwhelmingly white and predominantly male workforce in physically demanding jobs producing a quarter of the world's manufactured goods. The everyday lives of these Britons was different as well, lacking not only the modern conveniences that the author notes early in the text but even many of the basics of prewar life, basics which had been sacrificed to the exigencies of war. Kynaston notes their growing frustration with ongoing scarcity, a frustration that illustrated the gulf between their harsh realities and the idealistic dreams of government planners that is a persistent theme of the book.
Richly detailed, superbly written, and supplemented with excellent photographs, Kynaston's book is an outstanding account of postwar Britain. It offers readers an evocative account of a much different era of British history, yet one with all-too familiar concerns over youth, crime, and an emerging multiracial society. Having devoured its pages, I look forward eagerly to the next installment and the insights Kynaston will offer.
A very readable history of post war Britain August 15, 2007
29 out of 33 found this review helpful
I read a review in The Sunday Times when the book first came out. I thought it was a suitably obscure subject and asked the library to get me a copy. In then became a bestseller and I was told that the waiting list was 54 and I was 27.
I then read better reviews and they said it was a great book. I was born in 1950 so that period of history is of interest to me as I believed it shaped the1950s and 1960s and some of the attitudes still prevail today.
The book is a great review of British life in its every aspect and the thinking of the time. We had won the war but the peace was tougher than the war for a lot of people. Rationing went on for years and the old attitudes in society did not break down quickly enough.
I did not start to take notice of what was going on in society until about 1963 and the attitudes that are set out in this book certainly prevailed for thr next twenty years. All the old threadbare cliches of privilege and what society was all about still existed.
In 1946 the National Trust had a meeting and one of their representatives said about Montacute House in somerset that the public could not of course be admitted to the house because they smelt. There was two minutes dead silence.
People did smell in 1946 if you read about their washing an living conditions.
Housing was a big priority then as now Neil Kinnock's family moved in November 1947 to a new two bed-roomed prefab on a council estate in Nant-y Bwch " It was like moving to Beverly Hills he recalled " It had a fridge, a bath, central heating and a smokeless grate... and people used to come just to look at it.
The BBC was holding up standards as always and banned in 1948 jokes about lavatories, effeminacy in men, immorality of any kind.Extreme care should be taken about certain references such as pre natal influences(e.g. his mother was frightened by a donkey and marital infidelity.
The public's views on extra marital sex were recorded. One taxi proprietor said "I may say my wife and I have dropped one or two people who weren't playing the game ,we didn't think they were worth knowing."
It is an interesting old fashioned view that you would ostracise people for immorality. You would be ploughing a lonely furrow now if you did that.
In economic terms there was lot of price fixing and when proper competition came later British industry were not up to it because they had had such cosy arrangements.
There were standards to be maintained and a lot of people saw themselves as gentleman and had a code " Shoes have laces", "motor cars are black" "jelly is not officer's food". People believed this stuff.
Price fixing was everywhere between such companies as Lyons and Wall's in ice creams. Selling was a gentleman's existence with Sheffield operating as a big cartel. Orders were reported to the respective trade and association committee and at the end the day they would tell you what prices to quote. The price fixing was incredible.
British industry was not prepared to follow the American gospel of productivity and the 3 Ss standardisation, simplification specialisation.
In education only those who passed the eleven plus were deemed fit for a decent education and people like Cliff Richard did not pass and neither did John Prescott and the author said did not get the bike and thereafter never quite forgave the world.
All these attitudes were alive and well right through my teens in the sixties and well into the seventies. Some of them are still around now sixty years later.
If you want to understand present day Britain this is the book for you and at 632 pages before you get to the notes and index it is a hefty read but well worth it.
I will be quoting it to all those who think today's problems are some how unique.
We have seen it all before.
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