The first volume of Hennessy's postwar history of Britain concerns an age dominated by the shadow of war. With the beginnings of the Cold War, the foundations of the new Europe and the granting of independence of former colonies, Britain was forced to negotiate a new place in the world. It was also a time of rationing and of rebuilding, marked by the founding of the NHS and the welfare state. This comprehensive history embraces both high politics and everyday experience. It recreates the m...

Reissued with a new foreword to mark the centenary of Harold Wilson’s birth, Ben Pimlott's classic biography combines scholarship and observation to illuminate the life and career of one of Britain's most controversial post-war statesmen.Harold Wilson is one of the most enigmatic personalities of recent British history. He held office as Prime Minister for longer than any other Labour leader, and longer than any other premier in peacetime apart from Mrs Thatcher. His success at win...

In Distilling the Frenzy, the UK's leading contemporary historian examines the special considerations that apply to writing the history of one's own times, and revisits the grand themes running through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He looks at Britain's persistent impulse to punch well above its weight in the world; at the sustenance of the nuclear weapons policy which has accompanied that impulse; and at the intelligence operations which underpin it. For the human perspective ...

'The Ministry of Defence does not comment upon submarine operations' is the standard response of officialdom to enquiries about the most secretive and mysterious of Britain's armed forces, the Royal Navy Submarine Service. Written with unprecedented co-operation from the Service itself and privileged access to documents and personnel, The Silent Deep is the first authoritative history of the Submarine Service from the end of the Second World War to the present. It gives the most c...

Winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, Peter Hennessy's Having it So Good: Britain in the Fifties captures Britain in an extraordinary decade, emerging from the shadow of war into growing affluence.The 1950s was the decade in which Roger Bannister ran the four-minute mile, Bill Haley released 'Rock Around the Clock', rationing ended and Britain embarked on the traumatic, disastrous Suez War.In this highly enjoyable, original book, Peter ...

This updated edition of The Secret State revises Hennessy's picture of the Soviet threat that was presented to ministers from the last days of the Second World War to the 1960s. He maps the size and shape of the Cold War state built in response to that perceived threat, and traces the arguments successive generations of ministers, the military and civil servants have used to justify the British nuclear capability. He also adds new material exploring the threats presented by the IR...

A reflection on the state of democracy and observance of the British constitution in the United Kingdom.In The Bonfire of the Decencies, Peter Hennessy and Andrew Blick use Boris Johnson’s tenure as prime minister to argue that mechanisms for the upholding of constitutional principles in the United Kingdom are deficient and require an overhaul. They show that, from the outset, Johnson’s time in office was a source of serious disruption that saw standards a...

New and selected writings by one of the United Kingdom’s leading contemporary historians.As one of Britain’s foremost constitutional experts and contemporary historians, Peter Hennessy has spent his professional life unpicking the arcane world of Whitehall and Westminster. He began his career as a journalist for the Times, the Economist, and the Financial Times, developing a network of insider contacts who helped him shine a light on some...

States of Emergency (1983) examines the co-ordinated Government planning in Britain to counter major strikes in vital industries, an effort that began in earnest during the aftermath of the First World War. Contingency planning by Whitehall ministers and officials aims to calculate the point at which trade union demands plunge the country into chaos, and how best to mitigate the effects of stoppages in essential services and industries. The dilemmas faced by Lloyd George were fami...

Accompanying the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 program, Reflections features interviews with twelve of Britain’s most influential political figures from the last twenty years. Presented by Peter Hennessy, one of the UK’s most renowned historians, each interview not only offers an honest and frank assessment of a political career, but also acts as a biography filled with fresh insights and moments of new revelation. From one of the longest-serving Prime Ministers and three of the Conservat...

One of our most celebrated historians shows how we can use the lessons of the past to build a new post-covid society in BritainThe 'duty of care' which the state owes to its citizens is a phrase much used, but what has it actually meant in Britain historically? And what should it mean in the future, once the immediate Covid crisis has passed?In A Duty of Care, Peter Hennessy divides post-war British history into BC (before covid) and AC (after covi...

A former member of the Scottish government takes an in-depth look at the debate over independence and the future of the United—or not—Kingdom.In September 2014, with the Scottish independence referendum, the United Kingdom came close to being broken apart after three centuries as one of the most successful political unions in history. Yet despite a conclusive No vote, the Scottish National Party took almost every seat in Scotland at the 2015 general election....