British Economic and Social History [antikvár]

Preface vPreface to the Fourth EditionThis edition differs substantially from its immediate predecessor in two ways. The first chapter, on Population, has been entirely re-written, in an attempt to take account of recent work in an area of historical investigation where interpretations change fast and certainties are few; while at the end of the book the material covering the period since 1945 has been reorganised and expanded in order to approach as nearly as is sensibly possible to the present day. To write the history of very recent years with confidence is arrogant. All I have attempted in the final sections is to draw attention to some changes which seem to me particularly significant for the present and the immediate future. I have also taken the opportunity provided by a new edition to correct mistakes both of substance and of printing, to modify interpretations here and there, and to get rid of a few infelicities of style.Several people have gone to a great deal of trouble to try to improve this book in its new edition, notably Elaine Cooper, Donald Crocker, Barrie Evans, Tony Lancaster, Rolf Meyer, Jeffrey Porter, and Robert Owen, and I am very grateful indeed to them. They are not responsible for blemishes that remain.C. P. Hill Exeter, June 1976