In The Prime Minister: the Office and its Holders since 1945, Peter Hennessy explores the formal powers of the Prime Minister and how each incumbent has made the job his or her own. Drawing on unparalleled access to many of the leading figures, as well as the key civil servants and journalists of each period, he has built up a picture of the hidden nexus of influence and patronage surrounding the office. From recently declassified archival material he reconstructs, often for the first time, precise prime ministerial attitudes towards the key issues of peace and war. He concludes with a...

From the high politics of Court and Cabinet room to the everyday discussions in kitchen or queue, Peter Hennessy's Never Again: Britain 1945-51 recreates the mood and feel of life in early post-war Britain. At the end of the Second World War Britain was in flux. It was an age of rationing and rebuilding; when hope for a better future contrasted with the horror of war. Fresh ideals emerged during the common experience of the conflict and the new, widespread belief that everyone should be treated equally led to the creation of the 'welfare state' and the NHS, despite tough economic...

Peter Hennessy's The Secret State: Preparing for the Worst 1945-2010 is the story of secret government plans for combatting attacks on Britain, from the Cold War to modern counter-terrorism. Now completely revised and updated, Peter Hennessy's acclaimed account of the secret state includes material from a host of recently declassified documents, to give an up-to-date picture of Whitehall's efforts to defend the safety of the realm. What were the secret plans for Britain if World War Three had erupted and 'breakdown' had occurred? When would the Queen have been informed and where would she...

The nuclear weapons question runs through post-1940 British history like an irradiated thread. It represents part of the hidden history of twentieth-century Britain, given the high level of technical secrecy and political sensitivity in which the bomb was - and is - embedded.
This volume publishes previously classified Cabinet papers and related archives, dealing with the first theoretical scientific breakthrough in 1940, through the A-bomb and H-bomb procurements, to the Polaris missile upgrading decisions of the 1970s. The story is brought up to date in Peter Hennessy's narrative, which...

Kenya was a 'very different land' for the young officers who went out to Africa to use their technical and professional skills in the early twentieth century. Many such officers were destined for the Colonial Agricultural Service where Hilary Sunman's father, Owen, served from 1928-1950. In this book, Sunman considers the day-to-day experience of 'colonial service', and its many challenges, as she weaves together a human and family story, with special emphasis on her father and his work, combined with her own experiences as a development economist. All the elements - political and...

'The Ministry of Defence does not comment upon submarine operations' is the standard response of officialdom to enquiries about the most secretive and mysterious of Britain's armed forces, the Royal Navy Submarine Service. Written with unprecedented co-operation from the Service itself and privileged access to documents and personnel, The Silent Deep is the first authoritative history of the Submarine Service from the end of the Second World War to the present. It gives the most complete account yet published of the development of Britain's submarine fleet, its capabilities, its weapons, its...

Reissued with a new foreword to mark the centenary of Harold Wilson's birth, Ben Pimlott's classic biography combines scholarship and observation to illuminate the life and career of one of Britain's most controversial post-war statesmen. Harold Wilson is one of the most enigmatic personalities of recent British history. He held office as Prime Minister for longer than any other Labour leader, and longer than any other premier in peacetime apart from Mrs Thatcher. His success at winning General Elections - four in all - has so far not been matched. His grasp of economic policy was better than...