In a century of rapid social change, the British people have experienced two world wars, the growth of the welfare state and the loss of Empire. Charles More looks at these and other issues in a comprehensive study of Britain’s political, economic and social history throughout the twentieth century. This accessible new book also engages with topical questions such as the impact of the Labour party and the role of patriotism in British identity.

This new edition extends and brings up to date the story of political, economic, and social change among the British. An entirely new chapter covers the Thatcher years, discussing such events as the Falkland Island crisis and the General Election of 1983. Other sections have been revised to reflect information only recently available. Throughout, Havighurst has incorporated material from official documents, monographs, biographies, articles, and the press. His fascinating narrative fully captures the ongoing importance of change itself in shaping the character of Britain.

First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, Kenneth Morgan's Very Short Introduction to Twentieth-Century Britain is a crisp analysis of the forces of consensus and of conflict in modern Britain since the First World War.

This book explores the overlooked history of racial mixing in Britain during the course of the twentieth century, a period in which there was considerable and influential public debate on the meanings and implications of intimately crossing racial boundaries. Based on research that formed the foundations of the British television series Mixed Britannia, the authors draw on a range of firsthand accounts and archival material to compare ‘official’ accounts of racial mixing and mixedness with those told by mixed race people, couples and families themselves. Mixed Race Britain in The Twentieth Century shows that alongside the more familiarly recognised experiences of social bigotry and racial prejudice there can also be glimpsed constant threads of tolerance, acceptance, inclusion and ‘ordinariness’. It presents a more complex and multifaceted history of mixed race Britain than is typically assumed, one that adds to the growing picture of the longstanding diversity and difference that is, and always has been, an ordinary and everyday feature of British life.

This is the first scholarly survey of the British constitution in the twentieth century. Indeed, it fills a very real gap in the history of Britain during the last hundred years. The book is a product of interdisciplinary collaboration by a distinguished group of constitutional lawyers, historians and political scientists, and draws where possible on primary sources. Its evaluation of the recent constitutional reforms will be of particular interest. This major interpretation of the constitution will remain authoritative for many years. It is essential reading for all those seeking to understand the impact of the constitutional reforms of recent years.

This book explores the experiences and activities of students across the twentieth century and throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. The daily experiences of students, their involvement in local communities, national political organisations and widespread cultural changes, are the main focus of this ground-breaking book. It takes students themselves as the subject of inquiry, exploring the fundamental importance of student activities within wider social and political changes and also how some of the key changes across the twentieth century have shaped and changed the make-up, experiences, and lives of students. This book charts the experiences of students throughout a period of unprecedented change as being a student in Britain and Ireland has gone from the endeavour of a small number of elite, mainly wealthy white men, to an important phase of life undertaken by the majority of young people.

During the twentieth century, Britain turned from one of the most deeply religious nations of the world into one of the most secularised nations. This book provides a comprehensive account of religion in British society and culture between 1900 and 2000. It traces how Christian Puritanism and respectability framed the people amidst world wars, economic depressions, and social protest, and how until the 1950s religious revivals fostered mass enthusiasm. It then examines the sudden and dramatic changes seen in the 1960’s and the appearance of religious militancy in the 1980s and 1990s. With a focus on the themes of faith cultures, secularisation, religious militancy and the spiritual revolution of the New Age, this book uses people’s own experiences and the stories of the churches to display the diversity and richness of British religion. Suitable for undergraduate students studying modern British history, church history and sociology of religion.