Black Market Britain begins with the case of the actor Ivor Novello, who was convicted and sentenced to eight weeks' imprisonment for illicit use of petrol and evading the motor fuel regulations in 1944. During the trial, Novello maintained that he had done nothing wrong and that entertaining the public was essential war work, which should have entitled him to extra petrol. His special pleading was unsuccessful, and it garnered little sympathy from the general public. Nevertheless, the episode did little harm to Novello's career, and he received a standing ovation on his return to the stage. Roodhouse's analysis extends previous accounts of the black market, which emphasize the combination of demand, supply, and the structure of control orders, by adding an ethical element in order to understand why some broke the law and others did not. Black market dealings transgressed established norms and official propaganda of fair shares on the home front. Roodhouse argues that popular notions of fairness provide the key to understanding the relatively limited extent of the black market despite the fact that controls were not watertight and enforcement was haphazard. Drawing on economic anthropology and sociology, Roodhouse highlights the complexity of the relationship between social norms and rational choice, which underpins his central argument about fairness. There was no simple interpretation as to what constituted a fair share, which made it possible for people to justify evasions to themselves, but at the same time there was a limit to the kind of illegal activities most were prepared to engage in.

Roodhouse has assembled a wide range of sources, including previously closed public records, parliamentary papers, and newspapers, along with memoirs, diaries, and Mass Observation materials. Black Market Britain is organized into three parts, and Roodhouse begins by charting the underground economy in the 1940s, emphasizing the importance of nonmarket exchange. Part 2 explores the limitations of compliance strategies, policing, and the criminal justice system, which did not function as a deterrent. In the final part, Roodhouse highlights voluntary compliance, and he argues that people obeyed the regulations because they accepted the austerity policy as necessary and fair.

There is little disagreement that the black market in Britain was relatively underdeveloped compared with the Continent, where the supply situation was much tighter, but voluntary compliance had its limits. Roodhouse notes that the majority of black market food came from British farms, which were never policed effectively. His assertion that farmers “seldom abused” (21) the privilege of retaining unlimited supplies for their own use is contradicted by subsequent evidence of the large increase in farmers' domestic consumption of milk, compared with interwar usage. This was sold illegally along with black markets in eggs, poultry, meat, and bacon (40–43).

Approaching the black market hinges on the definition, and Roodhouse distinguishes between “black” and “grey” markets. While the former extended criminal activity that was extensively condemned, participation in the latter was also illegal but, according to Roodhouse, “socially acceptable” (16). Roodhouse acknowledges the self-serving nature of this distinction, and he offers a broad definition of the “grey” market, which includes not only gifts and barter but also retailers disposing of surplus stock, the sale and exchange of coupons, along with pilfering at docks, in factories, and throughout the distribution network. These practices were illegal according to rationing regulations. Workers may well justify habitual pilfering as a perk of the job and, therefore, socially acceptable, but for others there was no difference between pilferage and petty theft (61). These transactions were typically relatively small in scale, conducted between people who knew each other personally, and involved little, if any, monetary exchange. For Roodhouse, the black market centered on stolen or counterfeit goods and coupons, governed not by mutual exchange but by greed and the profit motive. Roodhouse's evidence greatly expands our knowledge of the workings of black and grey markets, but I am not entirely convinced about the separation between these markets, which frequently dealt in the same goods. Roodhouse acknowledges that the “boundary between the two was not always clear,” particularly because “most black marketing” operated within authorized channels and legitimate businesses (78, 111). Further, grey market transactions cumulatively could make a considerable difference, illustrated by the large proportion of eggs diverted from official channels. Prosecutions for offenses against the regulations highlight the prominent position of retailers while theft in transit reached unprecedented levels.

In the second and third parts, Roodhouse explores why grey and black markets failed to reach their full potential. This was less due to enforcement activity, which was little more than a calculated bluff. The numbers prosecuted were relatively low, and convictions mostly resulted in small fines. While Roodhouse's case about the limits of enforcement and deterrence is convincing, this is rather less the case with regard to the emphasis on voluntary compliance. Indeed, his analysis of Mass Observation responses demonstrates a range of strategies to legitimate evasion, including notions of fairness and entitlement to justify fiddles or grey market dealings. By identifying their activities as grey market, law-abiding people could maintain their self-image, but the more thoughtful respondents acknowledged that there was little difference between grey and black markets. There was also a shift in attitudes between wartime and the postwar period when many felt less compunction to participate in illicit dealings because they no longer considered rationing and controls to be really necessary. Arguably, the lesson of Ivor Novello's conviction is that he was unlucky to get caught rather than that his moral standards set him apart from other people. Black Market Britain is an important book, which breaks new ground by highlighting the importance of nonmarket exchange and detailing the extent and workings of infringements of economic controls under austerity. It should be essential reading for scholars and students interested in the home front during the Second World War and 1940s Britain generally.