No Turning Back: The Peacetime Revolutions of Post-War Britain, by Paul Addison.

Abstract

No Turning Back: The Peacetime Revolutions of Post-War Britain, by Paul Addison. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010. xiii, 449 pp. $29.95 US (cloth). Addison's first book, classic The Road to 1945 (1975), established as a vehicle to explore British politics during Second World War: idea of an unprecedented reduction in partisanship between Labour and socialism, Conservatives, and vicissitudes of laissez-faire. When Labour swept to victory in 1945, Addison said, the new consensus fell, like a bunch of ripe plums, into lap of Mr. Attlee (p. 14). The power of consensus after war manifested itself in rejection of ideas, whether from left or right, that seemed too radical, and this continued largely until 1979. From early 1980s on, idea of consensus has been central point-of-reference for contemporary historians to analyze politics in postwar Britain. Now writing at end of his career, this is Addison's road from 1945. His thesis is simple: Historians used to argue that Britain was transformed in first half of twentieth century by social upheavals of two world wars. With advantage of a longer perspective we can see that comparative peace and growing prosperity of second half of century were powerful solvents of tradition than Battle of Somme or Blitz (p. 2). The book is designed and effective as a chronological/thematic hybrid. It comprises three chronological chapters: 1945 to .1957, as aftermath of war and early days of classic state; 1957 to 1974 as an age of overall modernisation; and 1974 to 1997 as a period of transformation from consensus and relative collectivism to a country fractured both politically and socioeconomically. Each chapter contains four subchapters examining book's themes: state in economic and social affairs; standards of living and social class; gender, sex, and morality; and questions of national identity. There is no moment or period of revolution for questions of national identity. For Addison, Britain was subject of gradual change from an ethnically homogenous to a multi-racial one with black and South Asian immigration. Like all processes of change described in book, however, Addison shows that this was not inevitable and describes with some powerful examples how it was not without considerable turmoil and racist opposition. The discussion of transition from a centralized Anglo-centric state to a multi-polar one with Scottish and Welsh nationalism and devolution, however, seems to overstate threat to British unity. Few could argue that revolution in gender, sex, and morality did not occur in 1960s, but Addison points out that permissiveness of 1960s was in fact limited. It was in 1970s and 1980s when widespread shifts in popular attitudes and behaviour marked shift from a permissive minority to a permissive society (p. 341). As with this example, all of Addison's revolutions are neither rapid, replete, nor smooth. His arguments about pervasiveness of change are always well qualified: Time magazine wrote memorably in 1965 of London, but greater London was a city of ten million people. The young might be swinging in Chelsea, but what about Slough? And what of Grantham or Peterhead? (p. 197). Addison's peacetime revolution comes not in totality of tangible change, but in totality of change in perception via a common subscription to an unproven but seemingly irrefutable truth. There were dissenting voices after divorce and homosexuality were legalized in England, but revolution came in consensus of perception that these were just and permanent measures--no turning back. Before 1979, and especially before economic crises of 1970s, many felt that Britain was on a great collective train or welfare escalator to future: not a socialist future, but one that always promised more fairness or more equality. …