Business in Britain in the Twentieth Century: Decline and Renaissance?

Includes Richard Coopey and Peter Lyth, “Introduction: British Business in the Twentieth Century: Decline or Renaissance?”pp. 1-14, and chapter “Back to the Future: The Aircraft and IT Industries in Britain Since 1945” pp. 225-251. This book the first comprehensive survey of British business history written by the leading historians in the field, commissioned specifically for this study. Authors were given the task of locating a series of industry or enterprise studies in the context of the performance of the British economy in the twentieth century. They were specifically asked to confront the idea of relative decline and the more recent renaissance of the British economy and address issues such as periodization and the non-conformity of particular sectors. The introduction by Coopey and Lyth outlines this debate and weaves the contributions into an illustrative whole. The chapter on the aircraft and IT industries situates British high technology industries in the context of the post-war international competitiveness of the British economy.