I pitched all the other reading on the sidebar for Austerity Britain , a history of England after World War II.
I had been interested in the book since hearing the author David Kynaston on BBC4’s Start the Week some months back. What stuck with me was his remark that every survey done of English people after the war inquiring as to what kind of homes they would like in the massive rebuilding that was going to take place indicated that desired above all was a bit of privacy and just enough space for a garden. Even a small one.
So what was the emphasis of the post-war housing efforts?
Apartments.
Of course!
The bigger themes that drew me to the book,  were those which always seem to draw me: unintended consequences, what the Powers That Be think is best for The People (no matter what The People think) as well as the fundamentals of historical exigency and context. I am very big on understanding context, always and everywhere.  England’s plunge into a greater state involvement in economic and social matters after the war can only be understood in the shadow of the war itself and the privations which the people had endured during that time. There was a real sense that this post-war era offered a chance to a) fix some real problems afflicting the country – class division, poor health, inequitable schooling, work conditions and so on and b) to “reward” the people, in a sense, for their great sacrifices during the war.
But as I said…unintended consequences…
It’s a fascinating book – I’m about halfway through and will blog more when I’m finished. A great deal of the material, aside from the usual sources,  is derived from the work of Mass-Observation, an effort to record the opinions of the British people based on individual diarists as well as the work of researchers on the street both interviewing subjects as well as simply recording conversations they heard. Another major source is an impressive scouring of published autobiographies and diaries.