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Having it so Good: Britain in the
Fifties
Peter
Hennessy (Allen Lane)
‘Hennessy is a national treasure.’Hugo
Young
Having It So Good evokes Britain’s emergence
from the shadow of war and the privations of rationing into
a period of growing affluence – but declining influence. Peter
Hennessy takes his readers into the front-rooms where the
Coronation was watched on television, to the classrooms and
new coffee bars of 1950s Britain – and also into the
secret Cabinet rooms where politicians and mandarins made
contingency plans for the possible catastrophe of a nuclear
war. Hennessy brings to life the ageing Churchill;
the highly-strung Anthony Eden taking the country to war
in the teeth of American opposition and world opinion; and
the rise of Harold ‘Supermac’ Macmillan, gliding
over problems with his Edwardian insouciance.
Peter Hennessy is Attlee Professor of History at Queen Mary
College, London. He is a frequent broadcaster and is regularly
consulted by all political parties on constitutional and
historical questions.
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