The Thirties: An Intimate History of Britain. Juliet Gardiner

      

      JULIET GARDINER

      

       The Thirties

      An Intimate History

      

      

      

       For Joseph

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

       Dedication

Preface

A Note on Money

Part 1 How it was Then

Prologue The Eve of the Decade

1 Goodbye to All That

2 A Great Clearance

3 Dole Country

4 Mapping Britain

5 Hungry Britain

Coda The ‘Hatry Crash’

Part 2 The Search for Solutions

Prologue R101 Disaster

6 ‘Can We Conquer Unemployment?’

7 (Too Much) Time to Spare

8 The Hard Road Travelled

9 Primers for the Age

Coda Searching for the Gleam

Part 3 Planning England (and Scotland and Wales)

Prologue Follies

       10 Accommodating the Octopus

       11 Accommodating the People

       12 Accommodating Other People

       13 Grand Designs

       Coda The Edge of the World

       Part 4 1936

       14 The King is Dead

       15 ‘I am Spain …’

       16 Wanting the Palm not the Dust

       Part 5 Feeling the Texture

       Prologue An Iceberg on Fire

       17 Choosing Between Gas Masks and God’s Tasks

       18 A1 Men and Consuming Women

       19 Holy Deadlock

       20 Regimenting Mass Happiness

       21 Spittoons in Arcadia

       22 Dreamland

       23 Not Cricket

       Coda ‘The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear Itself …’

       Part 6 1938 to 1939

       24 A Scenic Ride to Catastrophe

       Acknowledgements

       Notes

       Bibliography

       Index

       By the Same Author

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       PREFACE

      There will be time to audit The accounts later, there will be sunlight later And the equation will come out at last.

      Louis MacNeice, ‘Autumn Journal’ (1939)

      The thirties is a statement as well as a decade. And it is one that is frequently heard today, because while those years are gradually slipping from our grasp, what they have come to represent is ever more present: confusion, financial crises, rising unemployment, scepticism about politicians, questions about the proper reach of Britain’s role in the world.

      Famously,