Hennessy, Peter – The Bell Bookshop

Land of shame and glory

Emma — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Peter Hennessy brings his deep political and historical understandign to this study of two of the most turbulent and disruptive years experienced by Britain in peacetime. As the protracted withdrawal from the EU and the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic dragged on, a series of unprecedented challenges - some global, some domestic – laid bare the fragility of Britain the Union. Beginning with the chaotic Fall of Kabul, which exposed Britain’s military dependence on the United States, through the protracted, unedifying removal of a prime minister – and the economically catastrophic, short-lived tenure of his successor – that further exposed the vulnerabilities of an unwritten constitutionl to the country sweltering in record breaking temperatures amid dire warnings of climate catastrophe; and finally to the death of a much-loved monarch, a point of constancy during decades of tremendous social and technological change. In his final chapter, Hennessy considers the continuities and upheavals of the last seventy years, asking whether there can be said to have been a second ‘Elizabethan Age’, and lamenting that the post-war period came close to its close amid such upheavel and loss.

A duty of care

Emma — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

One of our most celebrated historians shows how we can use the lessons of the past to build a new post-covid society in Britain

The ‘duty of care’ which the state owes to its citizens is a phrase much used, but what has it actually meant in Britain historically? And what should it mean in the future, once the immediate Covid crisis has passed?

In A Duty of Care, Peter Hennessy divides post-war British history into BC (before covid) and AC (after covid). He looks back to Sir William Beveridge’s classic identification of the ‘five giants’ against which society had to battle – want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness – and laid the foundations for the modern welfare state in his wartime report. He examines the steady assault on the giants by successive post-war governments and asks what the comparable giants are now. He lays out the ‘road to 2045’ with ‘a new Beveridge’ to build a consensus for post-covid Britain with the ambition and on the scale that was achieved by the first.

A Duty of Care

Emma — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

One of our most celebrated historians shows how we can use the lessons of the past to build a new post-covid society in Britain

Having It So Good

Emma — Thu, 03 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Winner of the Orwell Prize

The second part of Peter Hennessy’s celebrated Post-War Trilogy, Having it So Good: Britain in the Fifties captures Britain in an extraordinary decade, emerging from the shadow of war into growing affluence.

‘If the Gods gossip, this is how it would sound’ Philip Ziegler, Spectator Books of the Year

The 1950s was the decade in which Roger Bannister ran the four-minute mile, Bill Haley released ‘Rock Around the Clock’, rationing ended and Britain embarked on the traumatic, disastrous Suez War.

In this highly enjoyable, original book, Peter Hennessy takes his readers into front rooms, classrooms, cabinet rooms and the new high-street coffee bars of Britain to recapture, as no previous history has, the feel, the flavour and the politics of this extraordinary time of change.

‘Utterly engaging … a treat. It breathes exhilaration’ Libby Purves, The Times

‘A particular treat … fine, wise and meticulously researched’ Andrew Marr

‘Stands clear of the field as our best narrative history of this decisive decade’ Peter Clarke, Sunday Times

‘A compelling narrative … Hennessy’s love of the flesh and blood of politics breathes on every page’ Tim Gardam, Observer

‘The late Ben Pimlott once described Hennessy as “something of a national institution”. You can forget the first two of those five words’ Guardian