Austerity Britain, 1945-1951

Starred review from February 18, 2008
Kynaston (author of the four-volume The City of London
) has produced an extraordinary panorama of Britain as it emerged from the tumult of war with a broken empire, a bankrupt economy and an ostensibly socialist government. Britain between 1945 and 1951 is an alien place. No washing machines, no highways, no supermarkets. Everything was heavy, from coins and suitcases to coats and shoes. Everything edible was rationed: tea, meat, butter, cheese, jam, eggs, candy. The awfulness of 1939–1945 still lingered, and “any conversation tended to drift toward the war, like an animal licking a sore place.” Yet, people assumed “Britain was still best: that was so deeply part of how citizens thought, it was taken for granted.” By combining astute political analysis with illustrative anecdotes brilliantly chosen from contemporary newspapers, popular culture and memoirs, Kynaston succeeds in recreating the lost world of austerity. The volume represents social history at its finest, and readers may look forward to its promised sequels taking the story of Britain up to 1979 and the election of Margaret Thatcher. 20 b&w photos.

July 15, 2008
In this volume, British historian Kynaston ("The City of London") presents the first two parts ("A World To Build" and "Smoke in the Valley") of what will ultimately be his history of Britain from 1945 to 1979, which he refers to as his "Tales of a New Jerusalem." Although the immediate postwar years in Britain have been well covered by many historians, Kynaston's distinctive approach, weaving together private diary entries, media accounts, and interviews from the social research organization Mass Observation, allows the reader to experience the same circumstances and events simultaneously from many different viewpoints and all levels of Britain's class structure. Ranging from V-E Day to the sweeping changes brought about by a young Labour government, the text never loses its focus on how ordinary people coped with the effects of war, long after the battles ended. Coal miners, housewives, and shopkeepers join alongside famous voices to tell about times of astonishing adversity and upheaval. Some British terminology will be unfamiliar to an American audience, but overall this book, although a heavy 704 pages, is engaging and accessible. Recommended.April Younglove, Linfield Coll. Lib., Portland, OR

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.