A study of how World War II British politicians planned a postwar settlement to remedy inadequacies from the interwar years; how that settlement was implemented in conditions different from what they had imagined; and why it became so criticized that the Macmillan government tried to recreate it.

'An extraordinarily rich and suggestive work, full of illuminating asides and thought-provoking insights, backed by a formidable mastery of detail. This is a magnificent achievement.' David Marquand In the forefront of contemporary history, this volume displays the same breadth, originality and innovation as the first. The start of intense rivalry between industry, trade unions and the financial sector, to influence policy in postwar Britain, increased in the late 1950s. Macmillan's government succeeded briefly in restoring some of the original wartime consensus after 1961, only to see hopes for Conservative planning wither. Competition among interest groups to settle how the national interest should be defined made Wilson's attempt to create a Labour planned economy almost impossible. Despite the spur of relative decline, modernisation always fell far short of politicians' aims, putting in doubt the ability of even a modern state to achieve its ambitions. A series of crises exposed promises of breakthrough into growth, which governments blamed on the self-interest of institutions - without whose co-operation they still believed they could not govern.

This book brings together for the first time five French directors who have established themselves as among the most exciting and significant working today: Bruno Dumont, Robert Guédiguian, Laurent Cantet, Abdellatif Kechiche, and Claire Denis. Whatever their chosen habitats or shifting terrains, each of these highly distinctive auteurs has developed unique strategies of representation and framing that reflect a profound investment in the geophysical world. The book proposes that we think about cinematographic space in its many different forms simultaneously (screenspace, landscape, narrative space, soundscape, spectatorial space). Through a series of close and original readings of selected films, it posits a new 'space of the cinematic subject'. Accessible and wide-ranging, this volume opens up new areas of critical enquiry in the expanding interdisciplinary field of space studies. It will be of immediate interest to students and researchers working not only in film studies and film philosophy, but also in French/Francophone studies, postcolonial studies, gender and cultural studies.Listen to James S. Williams speaking about his book http://bit.ly/13xCGZN. (Copy and paste the link into your browser)