The Audit Of War. The Illusion And Reality Of Britain As A Great Nation

In this important and strikingly original book, the distinguished historian Correlli Barnett places Britain's decline since the Second World War in a startling new perspective. Basing his analysis on unpublished government records, he shows that Britains wartime performance, a supreme achievement of national genius and effort, was in reality characterized by all the classic symptoms of the 'British disease'. By the time they took the bunting down from the streets after VE-Day and turned from the war to the future, the British in their dreams and illusions and in their flinching from reality had already written the scenario for Britain's post-war descent.