Seeking a Role: The United Kingdom 1951⁠–1970

New Oxford History of England #16

by Brian Howard Harrison

In this, the first of two self-standing volumes bringing The New Oxford History of England up to the present, Brian Harrison begins in 1951 with much of the empire intact and with Britain enjoying high prestige in Europe. The United Kingdom could still then claim to be a great power, whose welfare state exemplified compromise between Soviet planning and the USA's free market. When the volume ends in 1970, no such claims carried conviction. The empire had gone, central planning was in trouble, and even the British political system had become controversial.

In an unusually wide-ranging, yet impressively detailed volume, Harrison approaches the period from unfamiliar directions. He explains how British politicians in the 1950s and 1960s responded to this transition by pursuing successive roles for Britain: worldwide as champion of freedom, and in Europe as exemplar of parliamentary government, the multi-racial society, and economic planning. His main focus, though, rests not on the politicians but on the decisions the British people made largely for themselves: on their environment, social structure and attitudes, race relations, family patterns, economic framework, and cultural opportunities. By 1970 the consumer society had supplanted postwar austerity, the socialist vision was fading, and "the sixties" (the theme of his penultimate chapter) had introduced new and even exotic themes and values. Having lost an empire, Britain was still resourcefully seeking a role: it had yet to find it.

Genres: History, British Literature, Politics

698 pages, Hardcover

First published March 26, 2009

About the author

The former Editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Brian Howard Harrison was Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford from 1996 until 2004.

Reviews

[C. B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fine study that made me realise I know more about this period than I thought I did. The cultural chapters were especially familiar. But much was new to me, such as one of Harrison’s overarching points about politics in these years; that is, that a shared belief in ‘corporatism’ brought the policies of Labour and the Conservatives very close together in this period, in contrast to before and after this period.

I always enjoy reading books in the New Oxford History of England series. When will the interwar volume come out, I wonder? Will it ever?

[Arjun Mishra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This textbook has the rare combined qualities of proving loads and loads of information to the point of cognitive overload but mixing it with eminent readability. It reads quickly for being such a large tome that dissects the social, economic, political, and culture history of a rapidly changing two decades in the storied history of The United Kingdom. The excellent aspect is that Harrison uses eight motifs and weaves them throughout the story to maintain coherence and organization. I am looking forward to reading the sequel.

[Patrick Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

In his 'informal history' of the Oxford University Press, P.H. Sutcliffe notes that 'the quintessential Clarendon Press book [is] impenetrably erudite that it [is] impossible to extract from it any passage likely to entice the non-specialist reader'. Whilst this is indeed true for many Clarendon titles, it is certainly not true for Seeking a Role , the penultimate volume of the New Oxford History of England. Harrison's prose is admirably readable, and the book reads very quickly indeed (at least by the standard of a 600-page tome).

I picked this up because I found myself embarrassingly ignorant of the modern history of the country where I have lived for my entire adult life. Although I have a BA in history for a British university, I never actually studied either British history or history post-1945. I was therefore desperately in need of filling some gaps in my knowledge. For those who, like me, need a refresher, I can recommend Harrison with a few significant caveats.

Firstly, this is not a narrative history. Harrison's organisation is thematic, although never wholly synchronic. Whilst I do not find this as much of a problem as the reviewer for the English Historical Review did, it is certainly necessary to keep a chronology at hand. Fortunately, an excellent one is provided at the end of the volume.

Harrison's range is undeniably vast. He seeks to cover all aspects of British political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural history in his chosen timeframe. Inevitably, this has benefits and drawbacks. In the section of intellectual culture, I found the single paragraph on classical studies to be judicious, if inevitably rushed. Harrison is quite right to highlight the increasing professionalisation of classics as a result of the overall shrinking of the discipline combined with the arrival in the UK of many continental refugee-scholars. He is right also to point out E.R. Dodds' The Greeks and the Irrational as a seminal work. Given Harrison's background as a Professor Emeritus of British History at Oxford, it is perhaps unsurprising that he is more capable still when writing about the development of his own discipline. Elsewhere, however, his desire to touch all bases can result in laughably cursory treatment: it would probably be better to leave the development of ballet untouched than to confine it a single, somewhat banal, sentence.

Harrison is comfortable using data and figures, but he also loves a good anecdote. On the whole, this is a plus. However, sometimes the connection between his anecdotes and the wider story is pretty strained. I, for one, am not convinced that the retreat of the Church of England from public life was in any way symbolised by Michael Ramsey's decision to wear a cassock rather than apron and gaiters.

[xhxhx · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book deserved more attention than it got.