State and Society

A Social and Political History of Britain since 1870

Martin Pugh

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781474243469
• Edition: 5
• eBook ISBN:
  9781474243476
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

As a vigorous interpretation of political and social developments in Britain since the late-Victorian era, State and Society is one of the most respected and widely-read introductions to modern British history. Martin Pugh explores as his central theme the relationship between the British state and its citizens with characteristic skill and insight. In this new fifth edition, Pugh brings his final chapter on Crisis and Coalition right up to the result of the May 2015 general election. The text throughout has also been revised and extended to address themes such as women's history, social class, Scottish nationalism, the working of the monarchy and the British system of government, new perspectives on the history of the Labour Party, secularism and British attitudes towards Europe since the 1970s. Pugh explores these and other themes with perceptive and accessible prose, maintaining an ideal balance of socio-economic and political issues. Also including new images and annotated further reading lists, this new edition of State and Society reaffirms its position as an essential text for students of modern British history.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title-Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Tables and Figures
• Preface
• Part I The Loss of Confidence, 1870–1902
• 1 The Retreat of the Industrial Revolution
• 2 Not Quite a Democracy
• 3 The Victorian State and its People
• 4 Victorian Values: Myth and Reality
• 5 British National Identity: Unity and Division
• 6 Isolation and Expansion
• Part II The Reorientation: The Emergence of the Interventionist State, 1902–18
• 7 The State, Social Welfare and the Economy
• 8 The Liberal–Labour Alliance
• 9 Crisis and Controversy in Edwardian Britain
• 10 Politics and Society in the Great War
• Part III The Period of Confusion: Collectivism versus Capitalism, 1918–40
• 11 The Failure of Laissez-faire
• 12 Mass Democracy in an Age of Decline
• 13 The Era of Domesticity
• 14 Imperial Climax and Decline
• Part IV Consensus: The Age of the Benign State, 1940–70
• 15 The People’s War
• 16 The Keynesian Era
• 17 The Permissive Society
• 18 The Loss of Great Power Status
• Part V The Era of Reaction and Decline, 1970–2015
• 19 The Breakdown of the Post-war Consensus, 1970–9
• 20 The Era of Thatcherism
• 21 New Labour and the Blair Era
• 22 Crisis and Coalition
• Index
• Copyright