Royle, Modern Britain - A Social History, 1750-1985. Lloyd, Empire to Welfare State - English History, 1906-1985

Abstract

Both of these books illustrate the failure of a society to solve the problems that have plagued it ever since the industrial revolution. England has never, except for the few years after World War II, possessed the will even seriously to try to confront those problems. Inequality and misery have not been the result simply of temporary malfunctions of English capitalism but rather have been necessary and inevitable features of it.

Edward Royle's Modern Britain: A Social History, 1750-1985, should give pause to those enthusiasts for economic change who believe that displaced workers can easily be absorbed into new industries. The wealthiest classes have always "benefited disproportionately" from economic change. They have always moved into the suburbs and left an inner city of "deteriorating housing ... and a rash of cheap, speculative . . . building." The cities have provided "scenes of human degradation" above which hang "palls of smoke and industrial fumes" and "the inescapable stench of animal and human excrement."