Sunday, December 27, 2015

Beckett, Promised You a Miracle: UK 80-82 (2015)

Andy Beckett.
Promised You a Miracle: UK 80-82.
London: Allen Lane (Penguin Random House), 2015.

Book information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.co.uk; Amazon.com.

Book excerpt: Andy Beckett, "Toxteth, 1981: the summer Liverpool burned – by the rioter and economist on opposite sides," The Guardian, 14 September 2015.

Author information:

Video and Events:

Book Reviews:

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Clarke, Hope and Glory: Britain 1900-2000, 2e (2004)

Peter Clarke.
Hope and Glory: Britain 1900-2000, second edition.
London: Penguin Books, 2004.

Book information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.co.uk; Amazon.com.

Book Series: The Penguin History of Britain

Author information:
Lectures and Video:

Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain, BBC, 2009.
Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain, Wikipedia.
These programs by Andrew Marr are an introduction to the period 1900-1945. The book associated with the television series is:
Andrew Marr, The Making of Modern Britain: From Queen Victoria to VE Day, London: Pan Books (Macmillan) 2009.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.co.uk; Amazon.com.]

Vernon Bogdanor, Gresham College, London.

James Vernon, Department of History, University of California, Berkeley.
Prof. Vernon's lectures cover some aspects of British history (social, cultural) that are not treated in much detail, if at all, in Peter Clarke's book.

Land of Hope and Glory; Jerusalem

Some Wikipedia Articles:
Other books on Britain, Twentieth Century, noted in this blog:

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Smith, Something Will Turn Up (2015)


David Smith.
Something Will Turn Up: Britain’s economy, past, present and future.
London: Profile Books, Ltd., 2015.

Book Information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.co.uk; Amazon.com.

David Smith, "Something Will Turn Up," book excerpt, author's website, 18 July 2015.

Author Information:
Book Reviews and Author Interviews:
Something Will Turn Up is an economic history of Britain since the 1950s, though more detailed beginning with the 1970s as that is the period when the author began his career, first as an economist and then as an economic journalist. The narrative often includes the author's personal experience, first with his childhood in the industrial West Midlands (and more specifically in the Black Country, so named because the region was denuded of vegetation and covered in the smoke of coal fires and coal dust) and later his interactions with government economic policymakers. This give the book a more informal character compared to academic economic histories. However, I think the personal narrative serves well to promote a theme that emerges from the book: economic history is not simply a matter of abstract impersonal forces acting inexorably according to some theoretical framework, the view one adopts as an economist. Nor is economic history a matter of mysterious and unknowable forces, or worse, a boring irrelevancy, which seem to be the views of many historians who focus on political, social and cultural topics. Instead we see that the decisions made by individuals drive and determine economic events. Decisions to raise or lower interest rates, to increase or decrease government spending, these are the actions of individuals which propagate throughout a society. So the book is mostly economic journalism rather than economic history.

Unfortunately, aside from describing the sad fates of some firms in the region where the author grew up, the book offers few insights into the development of British business since the relative decline of manufacturing industries during the 1960s through 1980s. What industries and other factors drove the consistent growth of the 1990s and 2000s? This may be self-evident to Britons who lived through the period, but not to a foreigner like me. Smith may mention housing and financial services; but other, science and technology based, industries, such as pharmaceuticals and aerospace/defense, may have had something to do with it. The book does not present a systematic review of British industries. After describing the decline of manufacturing in the Black Country and particularly at Rubery Owen, Smith writes: "There is a story to be told about a later manufacturing revival in Britain, of a productivity miracle in the sector and of the country’s success in attracting inward investment, particularly from the Far East." (page 47) Smith does not tell that story in Something Will Turn Up. Instead I must turn to the Wikipedia article on the Economy of the United Kingdom.

A survey of UK business history is available in:
Geoffrey Owen, From Empire to Europe: The Decline and Revival of British Industry Since the Second World War, London: HarperCollins, 2010.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.co.uk.]

In the 1950s Britain was one of the world's leading manufacturers and exporters: "In 1950 Britain had a 25 percent share of world manufactured exports" (page 8). "In the 1950s the trade surplus in manufactured goods was often as much as 10 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP)" (page 8).
By the 1960s and 1970s the awareness emerged that Britain's economy was growing slower than its continental peers France and Germany, that its manufacturing technology was antiquated, and that many of its products were no longer competitive in export markets; for example, Japanese motorcycles were clearly superior to domestic products and British exports were displaced from Commonwealth markets.
During the 1960s and 1970s Britain began opening its economy, joining the EEC in 1973.
During the 1970s and 1980s Britain experienced a turbulent period of economic, political and social change as the government and people adjusted to an economy whose composition had changed greatly from the immediate post-war years.
From 1991 to 2008 Britain experienced a period of uninterrupted GDP growth: "Between the autumn of 1991 and the first quarter of 2008 . . . sixty-six consecutive quarters of growth" (pages 164-5).

Other Books:
Economic History: (mostly Wikipedia articles)Economic History: 1940s and 1950sEconomic History: 1960sEconomic History: 1970sEconomic History: 1980sEconomic History: 1990sEconomic History: 2000sOther books on Britain, Twentieth Century, noted in this blog:

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Patterson, Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore (2005)


James T. Patterson.
Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore.
New York: Oxford Universtiy Press, 2005.

Book Series: Oxford History of the United States.

Book information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com, hardcover; Amazon.com, paperback.

Author information:
Video: James T. Patterson
Many of the following videos come from the C-SPAN series Lectures in History. You can find many additional lectures and discussions in other C-SPAN series: The Contenders; The Presidency; American Presidents; Landmark Cases.

Video: 1970s~~~~~~

Video: 1980s
  • Jeremi Suri, Doug Rossinow, Daniel T. Rodgers, Kimberly Phillips-Fein, Michael Kazin, "America in the 1980s," session title: “The American 1980s as a Historical Period: Problematizing the Standard Narrative,” American Historical Association, Boston, Massachusetts, C-SPAN, 08 January 2011.
    Papers were presented by the authors of these books:Some books by the moderator and commenter:
    • Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Detente, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2003.
      [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
    • Jeremi Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2007.
      [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
    • Jeremi Suri, Liberty's Surest Guardian: Rebuilding Nations After War from the Founders to Obama, New York: Free Press / Simon & Schuster, 2011.
      [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
    • Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s, fifth edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.
      [Publisher; Google Books, 2000 edition; Amazon.com.]
    • Michael Kazin, The Populist Persuasion: An American History, revised edition, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998.
      [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
    • Michael Kazin, A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006; New York: Anchor Books, 2007 (both imprints of Random House).
      [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
    • Michael Kazin, American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011; New York: Vintage Books, 2012 (both imprints of Random House).
      [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
  • ~~~
  • Haynes Johnson and Brian Lamb, "Book Discussion on Sleepwalking Through History," Booknotes, C-SPAN, 22 February 1991.
    Haynes Johnson, Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991.
    [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
  • ~~~
  • Gary Sick and Brian Lamb, "Book Discussion on October Surprise," Booknotes, C-SPAN, 12 November 1991.
    Gary Sick, October Surprise: America’s Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan, New York: Crown, 1991.
    [Google Books; Amazon.com.]
    Iran hostage crisis, 04 November 1979 to 20 January 1981.
    Gary Sick (b.1935).
    October Surprise conspiracy theory regarding the Iran hostages.
    October surprise, U.S. political jargon.
  • ~~~
  • Colin Dueck, "Ronald Reagan's Foreign Policy," Department of Public and International Affairs, George Mason University, Lectures in History, C-SPAN, 24 February 2011.
  • ~~~
  • Doug Rossinow, "Iran-Contra Affair," Metropolitan State University, St. Paul, Minnesota, Lectures in History, C-SPAN, 26 February 2013.
    Doug Rossinow, The Reagan Era: A History of the 1980s, New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.
    [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
    Iran–Contra affair, Wikipedia.
  • ~~~
  • Malcolm Byrne and Bruce Riedel, "Book Discussion on Iran-Contra," Brookings Institution, Washington DC, BookTV, C-SPAN, 04 September 2014.
    Books mentioned:
  • ~~~
  • Richard Reeves, Stephen F. Cohen, Jack F. Matlock Jr., Lesley Stahl, "Reagan, Gorbachev, and the End of the Cold War," New York Historical Society, The Presidency, American History TV, C-SPAN, 17 March 2011.
    Introductory remarks last until time 8 minutes.
    Books by the panelists:
    • Richard Reeves, President Reagan: The Triumph of Imagination, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
      [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
    • Stephen F. Cohen, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
      [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
    • Jack F. Matlock Jr., Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union, New York: Random House, 1995.
      [Google Books; Amazon.com.]
    • Jack F. Matlock Jr., Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended, New York: Random House, 2004.
      [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
    • Jack F. Matlock Jr., Superpower Illusions: How Myths and False Ideologies Led America Astray - And How to Return to Reality, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.
      [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
  • ~~~
~~~~~~

Video: 1990s~~~~~~

Video: Politics and Ideology~~~~~~

Some Wikipedia Articles:

Economic History:
Wars:
1990s U.S. Interventions:
U.S. Presidential Politics:
1972: U.S. presidential election, 1972.
Richard Nixon; Spiro Agnew; Gerald Ford; Nelson Rockefeller.
George McGovern; Thomas Eagleton; Sargent Shriver.
1976: U.S. presidential election, 1976.
Jimmy Carter; Walter Mondale.
Gerald Ford; Bob Dole.
1980: U.S. presidential election, 1980.
Ronald Reagan; George H. W. Bush.
Jimmy Carter; Walter Mondale.
John B. Anderson; Patrick Lucey.
1984: U.S. presidential election, 1984.
Ronald Reagan; George H. W. Bush.
Walter Mondale; Geraldine Ferraro.
1988: U.S. presidential election, 1988.
George H. W. Bush; Dan Quayle.
Michael Dukakis; Lloyd Bentsen.
1992: U.S. presidential election, 1992.
Bill Clinton; Al Gore.
George H. W. Bush; Dan Quayle.
Ross Perot; James Stockdale.
1996: U.S. presidential election, 1996.
Bill Clinton; Al Gore.
Bob Dole; Jack Kemp.
Ross Perot; Pat Choate.
2000: U.S. presidential election, 2000.
George W. Bush; Dick Cheney.
Al Gore; Joe Lieberman.
Ralph Nader; Winona LaDuke.
Bush v. Gore, 2000.

Other books on U.S. History, post-World War II, noted in this blog: