MACMILLAN, Harold.

£375 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Reconstruction: a Plea for a National Policy. First edition, first impression, of the future Prime Minister's first book, a statement of his "Middle Way" philosophy, developing a conservative system of interventionist and welfarist economic policy which provided an alternative both to the radical solutions of fascism and communism and also to the laissez-faire policy of the past.Macmillan was "one of those most prominent in seeking inter-party solutions to Britain's apparently intractable economic malaise" (ODNB), but he had become disillusioned with the National Government elected in 1931. "This book embodies the author's view that a new economic system is required to meet the changed conditions of the modern world. He believes that the flamboyant appeal of the revolutionary must be opposed not be a negative attitude, but by constructive proposals which appeal to the reason and intelligence of the nation" (jacket).Macmillan's approach characterized post-war Conservative Party politics (including his own premiership, 1957 to 1963) until the Thatcherite challenge in the 1970s.

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