200 Years and Beyond

This book examines the changing social political and economics landscapes that continue to shape and define the Britain and America that we know today. The industrial Revolution was defined by technology in cotton spinning, in the building of canals, railways and telegraphy. The intensity of economic change meant changes in social and political expectations from the Chartists seeking to widen the franchise in Britain to Civil War and slavery in America. Social progress ebbs and flows; nothing in history is linear. Strikes were won and lost. Coxey's army marched to show the plight of unemployment as many others would do during the Depression of the 1930s. America had the New Deal and Britain provided social forms of protection to deal with unemployment. The 1950s to 1970s are described as the years of calm waters of fully employment continuing prosperity people buying their first cars their first homes and domestic appliances. Stagflation became the problem for the 1980s of dealing with inflation and revisiting unemployment to new prosperity of the 1990s and the financial meltdown of 2008. People in 2020 have different lived experiences to those of 1820. Yet life in 2020 brings new but different challenges to 1820. The books is aimed at students of history of economics of social change and politics. It is however also aimed at a wider readership as it tries to tell 200 years of history as a journey that continues to shape both countries.