Were the 1930s in Britain a decade of growing prosperity, unprecedented levels of ownership and sane, competent government? Or was it a time of grinding poverty, long-term unemployment and political timidity? In this new book Andrew Thorpe cuts through the welter of dispute and mythology to provide fresh analysis of politics, economics and society in this most controversial of decades.

Andrew Thorpe took degrees at the universities of Birmingham and Sheffield. He is the author of The British General Election of 1931 and editor of The Failure of Political Extremism in Inter-War Britain.