Twentieth Century British History最新文献

Lionel Robbins (1898-1984) has been identified as one of the leading 'neoliberal' economists of his day. However, his name remains irrevocably linked with the massive state-funded 'social democratic' expansion of higher education recommended by the Robbins Report (1963). This article explores this paradox. Examining Robbins's writings on higher education in the context of his economic thought shows how he blended the liberalism of Adam Smith and J. S. Mill, neoliberal economics, and growing demands for personal choice. For Robbins, the atrocities of the Nazi and Soviet regimes demonstrated how the state armed with new modern technologies could endanger freedom and prosperity. But the 'good society' might wield technology to secure conditions of freedom and choice. Robbins advocated a system of state-subsidized universities based on 'student demand' and which generated social and individual returns. This system would perpetuate what Robbins called the 'creed of freedom': a reimagined interdisciplinary liberal education through which students would understand the importance of their specialism to liberal capitalism. His thought on higher education indicates something of the dynamism of post-war British liberalism and the range of support for higher education expansion. It further counters the impression of the British universities as sites of a static and conservative liberal education.

In June 1979, the Royal Commission on the National Health Service published its report. Chaired by Sir Alec Merrison, the Commission covered England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In 1976, the Royal Commission published and broadcast calls, asking the public to put forward their views on the NHS. In response, they received around 2,460 written evidence submissions, held fifty-eight oral evidence sessions, and met with about 2,800 individuals. In soliciting evidence, the Commission called on people to comment on their experience of the health service, submit that experience as evidence, and contribute suggestions for the NHS's improvement. These submissions of evidence, mostly in the form of letters written to Merrison, are rich and revealing sources. While NHS staff, trade unionists, and professional organizations were invited to contribute their perspectives, patients and other non-clinical members of the British public also penned letters. In this article, I use the evidence submitted by self-proclaimed 'ordinary' people to contribute to emerging discussions about post-war British citizenship, and its intimate or quotidian relationship to the welfare state. I use these submissions as evidence for popular anxieties in the 1970s, and to explore the various ways that British citizens experienced and engaged with the NHS; investigate how they felt about its services; and consider the affective and political function of complaint.

In the wake of the linguistic turn the 'new political history' has recognized the importance of both political language and social context. In practice, however, over recent years much political history of the pre-1918 period has become increasingly focused on language and party, relegating society and economy to the margins. This study emphasizes the interconnectedness of party politics and society, arguing that smaller municipal electoral districts offer potential new insights into the impact of religion, class, gender and ethnicity upon both, party policy and practice, and voter behaviour. Parties adapted their campaign strategies and policy stances to reflect their understanding of the social make-up of local electorates. Voter responses to party campaigns could be strongly influenced, but not determined, by individual or group perceptions of social standing. By exploring the connected fortunes of all three major parties new light is shed on the development of local political culture before 1914. The article also assesses the shifting strengths and weaknesses of Conservative, Liberal, and Labour parties, and contributes to historiographical debates on the politics of slum and suburban communities, and the pre-war trajectories of the major parties.

In the 1970s and 1980s, women across Britain-particularly those in the Women's Liberation Movement (WLM)-took part in a distinct sexual revolution fuelled by a very specific question-who gets to determine the ways in which I am sexual? The active engagement by women with this question of sexual selfhood belies a historiography of sexual revolution-real or imagined-in which women were the passive beneficiaries (or victims) of technological, cultural, religious, social and/or, economic shifts. Drawing on the writing of women in the feminist press, mainstream media, books, and pamphlets, this article describes the specific contribution of the WLM to shaping new possibilities for a sexuality defined, and controlled, by women. I argue that the WLM combined a powerful political framework with an influential social network to significantly contribute to a far-reaching process of deconstructing and recasting female sexuality and sexual relations.