Sidney Pollard. The Devolopment of the British Economy, 1914-1980. 3rd ed. London: Edward Arnold, 1983.
John Stevenson and Chris Cook. The Slump: Society and Politics During the Depression. London: Jonathan Cape, 1977.
Martin Wiener. English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850-1980. New York: Cambridge Univerity Press, 1981.
Traditionally, the Interwar period has been seen as a "slump," a period when the number of unemployed Britons never dropped below two million. Yet despite this fact, should the period be termed a slump? This is the question around which all four books discussed in this paper revolve. Noreen Branson and Margot Heineman, in their Britain in the 1930s, offers a traditional account of great suffering and deprivation, arguing that the Great War caused a large amount of social and economic dislocation that resulted in the Interwar slump. Sidney Pollard disagrees that there even was a slump, and argues, though using various economic statistics, that despite the large numbers of unemployed workers, the standard of living of the vast majority of British people greatly increased during this time period. John Stevenson and Chris Cook likewise argue that the Slump as been exaggerated and note that in many ways, the 1920s and 1930s represented the beginning of what would become known later in post-WWII Britain as the "affluent society." Finally, Martin Wiener moves the argument in an entirely different direction,s eeing the events of the 1930s not as prima facie events of themselves, but rather as part of a much larger trend of British decline occurring over a period of nearly 150 years.
Branson and Heineman begin by arguing that World War I was a great social dislocator for both Britain's economy as well as her society. During the 1920s and 1930s, the "British economy and society never regained the relative stability and confidence of the pre-war years." [1] Overseas markets were lost, some for good; many once profitable industries such as coal mining, ship building iron and steel production and the production of cotton textiles suddenly became unprofitable and were "fighting a losing battle." [2] While these industries were struggling, many newer industries such as auto production were booming. [3] Had the declining and booming industries occurred in roughly the same areas, the effects of this transformation from a tradition manufacturing economy to a more professional and service-oriented economy would surely have been significant but by no means catastrophic or something resulting in a depression or a slump. However, this did not happen, and as the declining industries were heavily centered in the North and West of Britain, and the booming ones in the Southeast and Midlands, there was a great degree of difference between the two areas.
