This book is the first to examine all aspects of the crisis together and in depth using an extensive range of official, institutional and personal papers. It demonstrates that a proper understanding of economic and imperial policies requires a sophisticated grasp of political processes. It shows how explanation of British political change must proceed by placing the power elites in their specific contexts, by exposing their beliefs, fears, objectives and strategies, and by displaying their interactions. The Treasury, the Bank of England, big business, the TUC and Keynes, as well as MacDonald,...

This book is both an examination of one of the dominant figures of twentieth-century British politics, and a contribution to the understanding of political leadership and Conservative ideology. It reinterprets the career of Stanley Baldwin, Conservative leader 1923-37 and three times prime minister, in terms of his construction of a "public character," his exploitation of the new mass media, and his exposition of a distinctive Conservative doctrine and language. Baldwin's remarkable ascendancy is shown to have been based on his manipulation of widely-held "national values."

Since the sixteenth century, the governments and established churches of the British Isles have summoned the nation to special acts of public worship during periods of anxiety and crisis, at times of celebration, or for annual commemoration and remembrance. These special prayers, special days of worship and anniversary commemorations were national events, reaching into every parish in England and Wales, in Scotland, and in Ireland. They had considerable religious, ecclesiastical, political, ideological, moral and social significance, and they produced important texts: proclamations, council...