The twentith century has seen Britain fight two world wars at considerable human and crippling economic cost. It has seen also the largely peaceful dismantling of the British Empire. The result has been that Britain has struggled to come to terms with its new place in the world order. It has been, and still is, unclear as to whether her role would be in a united Europe, or as a separate state on the perifery of Europe.
On the social front votes came to women in the late 1920s and to all people over 18 in the 1980s. Like many countries we played with socialism - nationalised railways, coal mines, telephones, health, etc. And have now led the way in dismantling state control, though we still do have a National Health Service (just)
| The First World War 1914 -1918 | A war fought on an epic scale for no good reasons. A whole generation died, and social attitudes changed |
| Between the wars 1918 - 1939 | The loss of Ireland, the General Strike, Votes for Women - a period of social adjustment |
| The Second World War 1939 -1945 | The war against Hitler - surely one of the just wars of history, but economically it crippled the country |
| Britain since 1945 | Britain gives up Empire, joins Europe, is this the end of the nation state? |
| Go on to next history page - 1914 World War I | |
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