From Dreams to Disillusionment: Economic and Social Planning in 1960s Britain

by Glen O'Hara

Overview

From Dreams to Disillusionment is the first book to cover the planning experiment of the 1960s in full historical detail. Other countries' planners made the approach seem successful, however, the experiment eventually failed, doomed to disappoint given unrealistic expectations, lack of time and an overburdened government.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230013476
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	11/14/2006
Edition description:	2007
Pages:	301
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

DR GLEN O'HARA is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at Oxford Brookes University. He was educated at Jesus College, Oxford, where he won the Gladstone and Eubule Thelwall Prizes for History, and University College London. He is also the joint editor, with Helen Parr, of The Modernization of Britain? Harold Wilson and the Labour Governments of 1964-1970.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Charts Acknowledgements Introduction The Planning Fervour of 1959-1964 Macroeconomic Planning Planning the Public Sector Regional Planning Housing Health Care and the NHS Conclusion: Governance, Choice and History Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

'An important contribution to our understanding of both the recurring enthusiasms for planning and periodic experiments with the technique in the twentieth century.' - Daniel Ritschel, Twentieth Century British History

'O'Hara is undoubtedly right that there needs to be a detailed, archive-based study which captures the breadth of the planning movement. From Dreams to Disillusionment delivers admirably to that brief, with the chapters on regional planning, housing and health care being particularly effective.' - Roger Middleton, Business History

'O'Hara's case studies powerfully document the rise of a planning dream driven by twin obsessions with investment and technology, and its fall when these could not overcome entrenched difficulties.' - Matthew Grant, Political Quarterly

'This is a good time to look back at the history of planning in the 1960s...For anyone wishing to revisit those times, Glen O'Hara is a highly recommended guide.' - Christopher Bliss, The European Legacy

From the Publisher