Transcript

Pat Thane, Research Professor at King’s College, London and Professor Emerita, University of London, explores the social and political history of Britain over the past 100+ years with Pod Academy’s Lee Millam, as they discuss her latest book, Divided Kingdom.

This podcast is a tour de force as Professor Thane takes us from the founding of the Labour Party in 1900 in response to low wages and poor working conditions, through 2 world wars and the arrival of globalisation with its attendant precarity and poverty wages.  Highlighting changing living standards and expectations and inequalities of class, income, wealth, race, gender and sexuality,  she reveals what has (and has not) changed in the UK since 1900, explaining how our contemporary society, including its divisions and inequalities, was formed.

Over the years there are recurring themes such as housing shortages and women’s campaigns for equality, and there are some surprises – the much derided 1970s were actually the time of the greatest equality!

Divided Kingdom, a history of Britain 1900 to the present by Professor Pat Thane is published by Cambridge University Press.

Tags: Founding of the Labour Party, Globalisation, Social legislation of 1960s, UK history, UK housing crisis, Welfare State, Women's suffrage, World War 1, World War II