TWO CENTURIES OF BRITISH HISTORY

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26319, 13 January 1951, Page 3

TWO CENTURIES OF BRITISH HISTORY

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS [Reviewed by H.S.K.K.] A Social and Economic History of Britain. By Panline Gregg, PhJ). B.Sc. (Econ.). Harrap. 584 pp„ illustrated.

Economic history without social history is. inhuman. The economic historian is apt to lose sight in his recearenes of the human beings who Jnade history and were in turn affected by tne material changes they brought about. An unreal world of abstractions is built up in such economic history that is painfully correct in all the material racts, in every figure that is given, yet remains in the end Lttle more than an ingenious intellectual exercise. Few economic historians have succeeded in remembering that they are chronicling and interpreting man-made events and achievements. Dr. Gregg is one of those few. She has related economic with social history, and in the result the latter has come to humanise the former, while one explains the other And, further. Dr. Gregg is an historian who has the knowledge and the courage to point the social consequences of economic changes. Such treatment and such Ijpnesty shdw a true scholar at work whose wide sympathies take note of everything that is relevant to the work in hand, and whose trained perception relates many divergent observations into a selfsufficing synthesis. Dr. Gregg has divided her book into three parts. The first, from 1760-1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, deals with the industrial revolution and, in the words of the title to this section, with the rise of the middle classes. Economic and social history are closely interwoven in this extensive section, and little has been neglected. Some omissions, as, for example, in the field of mechanical inventions and their consequences on economic development, are not of very great moment. They are more than made up for by Dr. Gregg’s discussion of the agrarian revolution, which is strangely left out of account by many historians. The emphasis which is placed on the inter-relation of industry and transport is also to be welcomed as a corrective to the majority of standard histories on the eighteenth century.

In conformity with the thesis of this book that the industrial and agrarian revolutions confirmed the defeat and absorption of the aristocracy by the middle classes who themselves are trading their power to the working classes in return for tolerance, the second section deals with the rise of the working classes from 1851 to the present. Economic history is the main content of this section. Industrial and agrarian development are again traced in detail, the general trade expansion and momentary contraction of the period is shown in its impact on working-class organisation, and the qualified triumph of labour over the owners of capital during these last few years has been shown. The struggle for the position of classes has by the immense extension of statecontrol and enterprise fallen into the background to be superseded by a fight for the control of the state itself. How this struggle for control of the state has come about is explained largely in the final section of this work, a section w’hich supplements in. the social sphere the preceding account of economic changes. In this final section, the Century of Social Progress, much valuable material has been assembled on social legislation, and particularly on governmental policy in formal and informal education. An epilogue and recapitulation completes the book. The first century dealt with saw a revolution that was preponderantly economic. The social changes to which it gave rise were masked by the appearance of material progress. The century that followed and which brings us up to the present year was one of consolidation in the material sphere. The use of electricity yas a'one a major departure from accented practices, and in it Britain did not outstrip the rest of the world as she had done earlier in other industrial processes and applications of power. While production and management became more stabilised in this period, the social changes which had been engendered in the preceding century of material revolution could now become apparent and gain impetus against the relative stability of their economic background. These changes are still working themselves out and have led to a new conception of life differing from the past not only in material aspects, but also in its values. The way in which Dr. Gregg has written this economic and social histoiy of the last two centuries is admirable. She never leaves the facts of her story for airy theorisings, but remains throughout close to demonstrable manifestations of history and allows these to stimulate her reader. Her scholarly apparatus of select bibliographies to each chapter, of documentation. well-organised indices, tables, and graphs is always adequate without giving an oppressive air of antiquarianism to such a detailed account. Well-chosen illustrations help to dispel any possible mustiness so often associated with economic and social history. Here is a book to which the lay reader may turn for a well-written and authoritative account of the last two centuries in English history, and to which the student will look for directions for further study and for stimulating ideas.