‘As is to be expected of a volume based on a conference which took place in 2012, aspects of the contributions collected in this volume will be familiar from other articles or books produced by the authors. Nonetheless, as the preceding survey indicates, this is a rich and varied volume, which indicates the continued health of twentieth-century political history in Britain and offers a fitting reflection of the influence of Duncan Tanner on its writing.’
David Thackeray, University of Exeter, Journal of the Historical Association

Chris Williams is Professor of History and Head of the School of History, Archaeology and Religion at Cardiff University


Andrew Edwards is Senior Lecturer in History and Dean of Arts and Humanities at Bangor University

Introduction: Duncan Tanner and the art of the possible – Chris Williams
1. The making and remaking of ‘common sense’ about British economic policy – Peter Clarke
2. The ‘big state’ versus the ‘Big Society’ in twentieth-century Britain – Pat Thane
3. ‘One meaning blots out another’? Liberals and Labour in the east midlands coalfield – David Howell
4. Cartooning the rise of Labour, 1900–21 – Chris Williams
5. Novels for ‘thinking people’: fiction and the inter-war broad left – Steven Fielding
6. Myth and counter-myth in Second World War British politics – Andrew Thorpe
7. Labour, nationalism and the problem of Welsh devolution, c.1939–64 – Andrew Edwards
8. Defending the constitution: the Conservative party and the idea of devolution, 1945–74 – Matthew Cragoe
9. Public and private languages of ‘class’ in the Luton by-election of 1963 – Jon Lawrence
10. Community and the Labour left in 1970s London – John Davis
11. Labour, the Union and the rebirth of Welsh devolution – Mari Elin Wiliam
Duncan Tanner: a select bibliography – Chris Williams
Index