When Oxford University Press commissioned Ross McKibbin to write the volume in the New Oxford History of England covering the years 1918 to 1951, they got more than they bargained for. McKibbin couldn't contain what he wanted to say within the covers of a single volume, and Oxford wouldn't agree to the inclusion of a two-volume work in their series. The result was the separate publication in 1998 of Classes and Cultures: England 1918-51, which concentrated on the social history, now followed by the publication of the Ford Lectures delivered in Oxford in 2008, which concentrate on the political history.

LRB 27 May 2010 | PDF Download