Welsh Journals

creed of planning, tracing how the 'New Jerusalem' of the 1930s and 1940s became the nightmare of tower blocks in the 1970s and 1980s. Other myths come under scrutiny. Adrian Wooldridge attacks the notion that the post-war welfare state has reduced inequality or, indeed, was ever so intended. Wooldridge rightly points to the disparate lineage of reform and the difficulties surrounding the welfare state at present. His essay is the least successful of the collection, however, marred by inaccurate generalizations, such as 'British trade unions took little part in social reform' (it was, after all, a T.U.C. initiative in February 1941 that prompted the establishment of the Beveridge enquiry), a distortion of the Labour Party's approach to reform, and, most oddly, by the charge that the welfare state has benefited the middle-class as much as the working-class. This, surely, was the intent of making such provision universal. Ben Pimlott is more successful on the myth of post-war consensus between Labour and the Conservatives. As Pimlott suggests, deep underlying differences remained between the major political parties over both ends and means. One indisputable change in the twentieth century has been the widening of political democracy in Britain. This has been influenced not only by electoral reform but, Paddy Scannell points out, by the growth of the mass media. In a striking essay, Pat Thane recounts the rise of women, perhaps the greatest social change of all in this century, and the difficulties that lie in reconciling women's interests with what remains, in many spheres, a man's world. The emergence of a multiracial Britain has been another enormous development. Michael Gilkes charts the arduous road taken by West Indian immigrants towards greater participation and representation in British society. The contributors are to be congratulated for making Echoes of Greatness a stimulating collection. The mirror which they have held up to Britain reflects a sometimes distressing image: a nation bewildered by profound social, economic and political change and often eager to seek solace in the glories and certainties of a previous age. Yet, as Michael Ignatieff argues in his concluding essay, Britain must come to terms with this change if she is ever to move out from under the shadow of the past. STEPHEN BROOKE The Queen's College, Oxford BELOW THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF TUBERCULOSIS IN TWENTIETH CENTURY BRITAIN. By Linda Bryder. Claredon Press, Oxford, 1988. Pp. xv, 298; 6 illust, 6 figs. £ 30.00. This account of the medico-social history of tuberculosis tells a poignant story, illustrating the therapeutic dilemmas which faced the doctors and the mixed effects on their patients of their good intentions.