Description: At the close of the twentieth century, shaken by two world wars, the erosion of empire, and the decline of the gold standard, Britain's place in the world is constantly debated and redefined. Hope and Glory traces not only the milestones of the nation's twentieth-century decline but also the subtler threads of a cultural and social history: the end of the Victorian boom and the first social reforms; the postwar welfare state; and the consumer culture of the late fifties and sixties, whose response to the electoral slogan "You've never had it so good" led to the eighties economy and its bleak underside. In this broad yet incisive perspective, portraits of giants such as David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, and Margaret Thatcher mingle with sketches of ordinary Britons who lived through three generations of unprecedented change.

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