This book is designed as an introductory text in a well-respected series. It aims to give students a feel for the disputes that have been the focus of ‘contemporary’ historians’ work on the welfare state as it has evolved since 1945. Although it is organised in chapters about sequential phases of activity and controversy, Page does not attempt a detailed narrative history. There is little on the substance of particular policies. Rather he reviews, for the new student, the major disputes there have been about the trends in post war policy and their origins.

How much did the 1944–8 legislation owe to attitudes generated by the Second World War? Is it legitimate to portray the period from 1945 to 1979 as one of broad consensus on social policy? How far was Mrs Thatcher able to carry through a welfare revolution or merely a passage of moderate welfare reform? Was Blair merely a follower of Mrs Thatcher or an initiator of a distinctively new approach to social democracy and social policy?

Page presents the contrasting accounts fairly and readably. He then comes to his own clear conclusions, except for the latest period where he is more cautious, and with reason. The weighing of the controversies seems to me fair and balanced, and I largely share his conclusions! Others may not, but, which ever is the case, this book will be a very helpful guide for students with clear signposts to further reading, lots of good sources and a real feel for the main arguments. It is brief, lucid and easy to read. There are, however, a few things I missed.

The author says in his introduction that ‘The book starts from the premise that the student of social policy can gain a deeper understanding of the welfare state by studying political and historical accounts of the welfare state’ (p. 2). In fact, the account and the way it is structured relies more on the historical disputes than those in political science. These might have included some of the following questions:

Can the period be better divided between that of incremental budgeting (1950s–1976), the reassertion of Treasury supremacy (post-1976), which then moves from mere control over public expenditure totals into micro managing social policy (1997–2007)? Or has the Treasury been dominant throughout? Can we chart swings in the relative power of producer and consumer interests? How far have the early pluralist accounts of policy making held up compared to the elitist and social learning accounts or the Marxist ones? What has happened to the role of local government in delivering social policy? How far and why has policy management become centralised and formalised or has it? What do the micro-studies of social service delivery have to say about the changing nature of social policy at the sharp end over the post-war period? What of the politics of service delivery in short? There are other ways to cut this literature, but the way the book is divided now does not help the student see the continuities and changes in the balance of the wider political science debate.

There is little in the book to alert the student to the vast social and economic changes of the post-1945 period and the way they may have interacted with the policy shifts and ideological debates of the time. The changing contributions of women, both substantively and to policy debate, could be developed. The impact of the 1930s in shaping post-war social policy is perhaps played down – the experience of localised public assistance for many at first hand, the changing attitudes to social insurance, women as workers who were ‘demobilised’ as competitors for possibly scarce jobs.

Finally, this is an entirely UK-based account. The importance of devolution and the extent to which there has always been a difference in social policy between the regions and countries of the UK is not touched upon. It does not discuss the way in which the politics of social policy in the UK has been different compared to those of Europe or the US. There is clearly a difficulty for the author here, as there is a separate volume in the series about comparative social policy (Kennett Reference Kennett2001) and the excellent comparative material on the origin of new policy ideas in Deacon (Reference Deacon2002). However, a discussion of the extent to which debates about the history of social policy in the UK have been viewed in a different way by overseas observers, and how far comparative histories shed a different light on our often closed views of the UK welfare state, would open another window for students.

This is all rather unfair though. Page has done well what he set out to do. These suggestions would have made a longer and a different book. But, perhaps in another edition?