Skip to content

Having it so Good

Britain in the Fifties

Peter Hennessy

Having It So Good evokes Britain’s emergence from the shadow of war and the privations of rationing into a period of growing affluence – but declining influence. Peter Hennessy takes his readers into the front-rooms where the Coronation was watched on television, to the classrooms and new coffee bars of 1950s Britain – and also into the secret Cabinet rooms where politicians and mandarins made contingency plans for the possible catastrophe of a nuclear war. Hennessy brings to life the ageing Churchill; the highly-strung Anthony Eden taking the country to war in the teeth of American opposition and world opinion; and the rise of Harold ‘Supermac’ Macmillan, gliding over problems with his Edwardian insouciance.

First published:
2006
Published by:
Allen Lane
Length:
Hardcover 768 pages

About the author

Peter Hennessy is Attlee Professor of History at Queen Mary College, London. He is a frequent broadcaster and is regularly consulted by all political parties on constitutional and historical questions.