Warfare State: Britain, 1920–1970

by David Edgerton

• ISBN13: 9780521672313
• ISBN10: 0521672317
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-01-16
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

A challenge to the central theme of the existing histories of twentieth-century Britain, that the British state was a welfare state, this book argues that it was also a warfare state, which supported a powerful armaments industry. This insight implies major revisions to our understanding of twentieth-century British history, from appeasement, to wartime industrial and economic policy, and the place of science and technology in government. David Edgerton also shows how British intellectuals came to think of the state in terms of welfare and decline, and includes a devastating analysis of C. P. Snow's two cultures. This groundbreaking book offers a new, post-welfarist and post-declinist, account of Britain, and an original analysis of the relations of science, technology, industry and the military. It will be essential reading for those working on the history and historiography of twentieth-century Britain, the historical sociology of war and the history of science and technology.

Author Biography

David Edgerton is Hans Rausing Professor at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the Imperial College London

Table of Contents

List of figures	viii
List of tables	ix
Acknowledgements	xi
List of abbreviations	xiv
Introduction	1	(14)
The military-industrial complex in the interwar years	15	(44)
The warfare state and the nationalisation of Britain, 1939--55	59	(49)
The expert state: the military-scientific complex in the interwar years	108	(37)
The new men and the new state, 1939--70	145	(46)
Anti-historians and technocrats: revisiting the technocratic moment, 1959--64	191	(39)
The warfare state and the `white heat', 1955--70	230	(40)
The disappearance of the British warfare state	270	(35)
Rethinking the relations of science, technology, industry and war	305	(34)
Appendices	339	(14)
Index	353