Post-war development

[wellinghall]

And another one.

While no expert, I am tolerably familiar with post-WWII British history and politics. But how does it compare with the history and politics of other major European countries (eg Germany, Italy, France) for the same period?

There are obvious differences - France had been invaded and occupied; Germany and Italy had both been defeated in war; Germany had been partitioned. But how much did this affect their later development? What lessons could we have learned from them that we didn't?

(Um, this is turning into a huge subject! But any enlightened comments - philmophlegm, gramarye1971, parrot_knight, maybe? - would be much appreciated!)

ETA:
I was a post-war baby in a small Scots town
I was three years old when we moved down south
Hard times written in my mother's looks
With her widow's pension and her ration books
Aneurin Bevan took the miners' cause
The the House of Commons in his coal dust voice
We were locked up safe and warm from the snow
With "Life with the Lyons" on the radio
And Churchill said to Louis Mountbatten
"I just can't stand to see you today
How could you have gone and given India away?"
Mountbatten just frowned, said "What can I say?
Some of these things slip through your hands
And there's no good talking or making plans"
But Churchill he just flapped his wings
Said "I don't really care to discuss these things, but
Oh, every time I look at you
I feel so low I don't know what to do
Well every day just seems to bring bad news
Leaves me here with the Post World War Two Blues"

1959 was a very strange time
A bad year for Labour and a good year for wine
Uncle Ike was our American pal
And nobody talked about the Suez Canal
I can still remember the last time I cried
The day that Buddy Holly died
I never met him, so it may seem strange
Don't some people just affect you that way
And all in all it was good
The even seemed to be in an optimistic mood
While TW3 sat and laughed at it all
Till some began to see the cracks in the walls
And one day Macmillan was coming downstairs
A voice in the dark caught him unawares
It was Christine Keeler blowing him a kiss
He said "I never believed it could happen like this
But oh, every time I look at you
I feel so low I don't know what to do
Well every day just seems to bring bad news
Leaves me here with the post World War Two Blues"

I came up to London when I was nineteen
With a corduroy jacket and a head full of dreams
In coffee bars I spent my nights
Reading Allen Ginsberg, talking civil rights
The day Robert Kennedy got shot down
The world was wearing a deeper frown
And though I knew that we'd lost a friend
I always believed we would win in the end
'Cause music was the scenery
Jimi Hendrix played loud and free
Sergeant Pepper was real to me
Songs and poems were all you needed
Which way did the sixties go?
Now Ramona's in Desolation Row
And where I'm going I hardly know
It surely wasn't like this before but
Oh, every time I look around
I feel so low my head seems underground
Well every day just seems to bring bad news
Leaves me here with the Post World War Two Blues

Oh, every time I look at you
I feel so low I don't know what to do
Well every day just seems to bring bad news
Leaves me here with the post World War Two Blues

"Post World War Two Blues", Al Stewart

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Can useful lessons be drawn from comparative history? Discuss!

I'm pretty sure I've seen that on an exam paper somewhere...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

My formal history education finished more than 30 years ago, so I am not familiar with these "history exam papers" you speak of ... ;-)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

There is, or was, a comparative history option in the Oxford history syllabus, but I (and ISTR also Ladyofastolat) did the historiography option instead so I don't know what it in it.

My impression was that it involved a lot of sitting round going 'Oooh! Cultures! How different they are! How similar they are!' like a bunch of hippies smoking a sort of historical joint. Though that may just have been the tutor that taught it at SHC.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

What is "historiography"?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Historiography is about why historians write the stuff they do about history: how much of their theories are to do with the culture about which they are writing, and how much of it is about the culture they live in.

It leaves you in an awful state of doubt about all historical facts...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Ta

[thecatsamuel.livejournal.com]

Being doubtful about historical facts is a fine and healthy state - my detailed grasp of history ends in 117 AD and is focussed on Rome, so that's not much use for Wellinghall's question here, but historiography is useful for example because NO Greek or Roman writer thought about "history" as we do. It was written by and for the elite to give examples of how (or how not) to behave. And though they sometimes said they were being truthful and unbiased that is (to be blunt) baloney.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that interesting comment.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Cripes that's a huge question! That's not just an essay, that's a whole degree course!

Off the top of my head, differences between the British post-war experience and other western European countries:

1. Whereas industry in other countries was destroyed during the war and rebuilt after the war (in a mix of private and public ownership), large parts of British industry were taken into state ownership without being modernised, becoming inefficient in comparison. Britain suffered more than most from trade union power.

2. The UK benefited less from the Marshall Plan than some other European countries.

3. The UK maintained democracy throughout the century (even if elections were suspended during the war) and never suffered from anti-democratic / dictatorial rule, unlike Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, even France. The robustness of our political institutions constributed to the political stability we enjoyed.

4. There was a broad political and economic consensus in British politics in the post-war period until the late 70s. This was not the case in some European countries, particularly those where communist parties enjoyed significant levels of support.

5. By and large, Britain disentangled itself from third world colonial commitments with more ease and grace than countries like France, Belgium and Portugal.

6. When Britain wasn't in it, the 'Common Market' was for the most part an economic arrangement, largely liberal in nature that contributed to economic growth among member states. After we joined (though not because we joined) it evolved to become a political 'European Union' with increasingly illiberal economic policies that hindered economic growth in many member states.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

*bzzt* justify Portugal? My politics A level teacher (who was admittedly a bit of a twit) gave Portugal as an example of relatively graceful and benign decolonisation.

... though possibly this was just in contrast to Spain and Belgium...

[gramarye1971]

*nods* The drawn-out guerilla battles with FRELIMO and other anticolonial splinter groups were also a major destabilising factor in all of sub-Saharan Africa in the 1960s and 1970s -- it's arguable that the mess that followed Rhodesian UDI and contributed to the strength of the apartheid regime in South Africa up through the 1990s was in no small part due to Portugal's inability/unwillingness to extricate itself from its colonial claim in Mozambique.

[gramarye1971]

Glad to contribute. ^_^ One of the things I remember reading about whilst digging through the Kew archives on Rhodesia in the 1970s was the level of frustration with Mozambique, because it was a hub of oil sanctions-busting activity and communist- or mercenary-supported training for guerilla conflict tactics, and the Wilson and Heath governments couldn't do much about it besides wring their hands.

I'd never heard of the Goa conflict before -- interesting stuff, there.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Yet more evidence that my A level politics teacher simply made a whole bunch of stuff up!

I should know by now to disregard everything he said, but somehow that teacherly authority is pervasive...

Thanks, I will have to read up further now I have some starting points!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your interesting comments.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that interesting comment.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what he said. There wasn't a 'British Colonial War', but there was a 'Portuguese Colonial War'. It was one of the longest wars (possibly the longest) fought by any European nation since 1945 and it ended in the overthrow of the Portuguese government.

[(Anonymous)]

There was national conscription during the war, and many of Meglorien's parents generation had to fight, including most of her uncles.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming this is foradan ...

[gramarye1971]

I like all of these, so I'll add to them!

7. Compared with France, Germany, and Italy, the protest movements of the late 1960s -- the soixante-huitards, on both the left and right -- did not have the same pervasive political and cultural impact in the UK. (There are a few reasons for this, but most of them can be boiled down to the fact that Prague is a lot closer to Paris than London.)

8. Much as I hate to bring the 'special relationship' into the picture, it made a significant contribution to the postwar differences between the UK and continential Europe, particularly regarding nuclear deterrence issues.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Yes agreed. regarding 8, contrast British willingness to be junior partner in a transatlantic alliance with the French desire for independence.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your interesting comments.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you for all your comments on this, philmophlegm.