This groundbreaking collection of essays challenges the notion that early postwar Britain was characterised by a consensus between the major political parties arising out of the experiences of the wartime coalition government.

Notes on the Contributors - Preface; P.Catterall - Introduction; H.Jones - A Bloodless Counter-Revolution: the Conservative Party and the Defence of Inequality, 1945-51; H.Jones - Consensus here, Consensus there...but not Consensus everywhere: the Labour Party, Equality and Social Policy in the 1950s; N.Ellison - 'Not Reformed Capitalism, but...Democratic Socialism': the Ideology of the Labour Leadership, 1945-51; M.Francis - Conservative Elites, Strategy - and 'Consensus'?; M.D.Kandiah - Consensus and Consumption: Rationing, Austerity and Controls after the War; I.Zweiniger-Bargielowska - Butskellism, the Postwar Consensus and the Managed Economy; N.Rollings - The Politics of the 'Social' and the 'Industrial' Wage, 1945-60; N.Whiteside - Industrial Organisation and Ownership, and a New Definition of the Postwar 'Consensus'; H.Mercer - Decolonisation and Postwar Consensus; N.Owen - Index