No Turning Back: The Peaceful Revolutions of Post-War Britain

by Paul Addison

In No Turning Back , Paul Addison charts the vastly changing character of British society since the end of the Second World War, tracing a series of peaceful revolutions that have completely transformed the country. He shows, for instance, that much of the sexual morality preached if not
practiced for centuries has been dismantled with the creation of a "permissive society." The employment and career chances of women have been revolutionized. A white nation has been transformed into a multiracial one. An economy founded on manufacturing under the watchful eye of the "gentlemen in
Whitehall" has morphed into a free market system, heavily dependent on finance, services, and housing, while a predominantly working class society has evolved into a predominantly middle class one. Throughout, Addison infuses his narrative with the personal point of view of someone who has lived
through it all and seen the Britain of his youth turn into a very different country, but who in the final reckoning still prefers the present to the past.

Genres: History, British Literature

464 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Paul Addison was a British author and historian, specializing in the British experience in the Second World War and its effects on post-war society. After graduating from Nuffield College, Oxford, in 1967, Addison became a Lecturer at Edinburgh University and subsequently a Reader, for 23 years.

Reviews

[Nikita Blomstedt · Rating 5 out of 5]

One book about British Civilization suggested this as further reading after the first chapter. I immediately bought it and got hooked and now a few days later I am totally fine with having finished it, because it had a lot of information about British history and a lot of further reading at the end. The facts are valuable and I really believe the author is telling the truth, from different angles and perspectives and without skipping over racism, the hardships of war and immigration politics.
I recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about Great Britains history.

[Owen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative but I think I've just read too many books on similar topics recently. I particularly liked the handful of times that Addison brought his own experiences as someone who had lived through the period to bear. How he talked about the attitudes he inherited as a grammar school boy in the 50s that he has lived to see outdated and how that related to the history he was telling.

The history itself is well told and covers the sweep of the period very well. I just came to it having recently read a number of books focusing on individual slices of it (including the Dominic Sandbrook books on the 50s-70s, When the Lights went out by Andy Beckett, austerity britain, and David Marquands' recent political history book) and felt i was going over old ground a little. It may in fact be a better summary of the period than any one other book I've read but it doesn't have much that is new if you have already read a few

[SP · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book in the recommended reading section of Robert Tomb's massive (and brilliant) 'The English and Their History'.

Addisson manages to give an accessible account of the social and political changes in Britain from the end of the war until the election of Tony Blair in 1997, covering a lot of ground by avoiding labouring any particular agenda. Conservatives and socialists alike are praised for their successes and criticised for their failures and even taboos like immigration, multiculturalism and sexual liberation and passed over with an analytical eye rather than unquestioning faith. Addisson is even-handed, investigative and while the book does lack the depth of a complete history (for example, Tomb's book is more than twice as long) it goes into enough detail to hit all the key themes across the decades.

This is a great book to follow-up any reading of broader UK history and very accessible both in terms of treatment and length at 410 pages...

[Arjun Mishra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A readable study of some of the sweeping changes occurring in Britain following the World Wars. Many of the changes are detailed qualitatively; others are presented with graphs and stats. The consensus seems to be that the 60s started a permissive society that continued through the 70s and Thatcherism, so that it has entrenched itself in Britain. I am not sure if Addison was connecting economic success with a decline in morality. Seemed like he was laying out facts in places and providing analyses in others.