British economy (1920 - 1957) C.2

This book is a modest attempt to bring British economic history for the general reader up to date. Specialist studies in various aspects of the subject in the last forty years abound; but there is no general treatment. The omission is a consider able one-forty years is a long time and the past forty years have been crowded with significant developments; it is also important, for where there is no history there is myth; and there are many myths in circulation concerning events since 1919.

There is no bibliography; the reader who wishes to consult other works should find all that he needs in the footnotes. I wish to express my thanks to Miss A. MacDonald of the University of Aberdeen whose insight and shrewdness first guided my steps in this field and who kindly read some of the following chapters. I also feel that my indebtedness to almost all issues of the Economist from 1919 to the present day should be firmly recorded at the start.