The period since 1939 has seen more rapid and significant change than any other time in Welsh history. Wales has developed a more assertive identity of its own and some of the apparatus of a nation state. Yet its economy has floundered between boom and bust, its traditional communities have been transformed, and the Welsh language and other aspects of its distinctiveness have been undermined by a globalizing world. Wales has also been deeply divided by class, language, ethnicity, gender, religion, and region. Its people have grown wealthier, healthier, and more educated but they have not...

This book is the first overview of Wales in the period from the Second World War to the early years of devolution. Drawing upon in-depth research, it offers an incisive account of an important phase in British history from the perspective of a nation that is too often overlooked.
The period since 1939 saw more rapid and significant change than any other time in Welsh history. Wales developed a more assertive identity of its own and some of the apparatus of a nation state. Yet its economy floundered between boom and bust, its traditional communities were transformed and the Welsh language...