Government Official History Series
About the Book Series
The Government Official History series began in 1919 with wartime histories, and the peacetime series was inaugurated in 1966 by Harold Wilson. The aim of the series is to produce major histories in their own right, compiled by historians eminent in the field, who are afforded free access to all relevant material in the official archives. The Histories also provide a trusted secondary source for other historians and researchers while the official records are not in the public domain. The main criteria for selection of topics are that the histories should record important episodes or themes of British history while the official records can still be supplemented by the recollections of key players; and that they should be of general interest, and, preferably, involve the records of more than one government department.
The Official History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales: Volume V: Policing Post-war Britain: Plus ça change
1st Edition
By Tim Newburn
September 12, 2024
This is the fifth and final volume in the Official History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales. This volume covers the uneven and often irresolute evolution of policing from the late 1940s to the end of the 1990s, concentrating on the impact of a succession of scandals on the reputation and ...
The Official History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales: Volume IV: The Politics of Law and Order
1st Edition
By David Downes, Tim Newburn
May 27, 2024
This book is Volume IV in the Official History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales. Previous volumes have focused on the moral reforms of the 1960s, the changes to the criminal courts and the introduction of an independent prosecution service, and the broad shifts in penal policy that have ...
The Official History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales: Volume III: The Rise and Fall of Penal Hope
1st Edition
By David Downes
May 31, 2023
Volume III of The Official History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales draws on archival sources and individual accounts to offer a history of penal policymaking in England and Wales between 1959 and 1997. The book studies the changes underlying penal policymaking in the period, from a belief ...
The Official History of the British Civil Service: Reforming the Civil Service, Volume I: The Fulton Years, 1966-81
1st Edition
By Rodney Lowe
February 25, 2020
This first volume of the Official History of the UK Civil Service covers its evolution from the Northcote-Trevelyan Report of 1854 to the first years of Mrs Thatcher’s government in 1981. Despite current concerns with good governance and policy delivery, little serious attention has been paid to ...
The Authorised History of British Defence Economic Intelligence: A Cold War in Whitehall, 1929-90
1st Edition
By Peter Davies
January 14, 2020
This book is the first history of UK economic intelligence and offers a new perspective on the evolution of Britain's national intelligence machinery and how it worked during the Cold War. British economic intelligence has a longer pedigree than the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) and was the ...
The Official History of the UK Strategic Nuclear Deterrent: Volume I: From the V-Bomber Era to the Arrival of Polaris, 1945-1964
1st Edition
By Matthew Jones
January 23, 2019
Volume I of The Official History of the UK Strategic Nuclear Deterrent provides an authoritative and in-depth examination of the British government’s strategic nuclear policy from 1945 to 1964. Written with full access to the UK documentary record, this volume examines how British governments ...
The Official History of the UK Strategic Nuclear Deterrent: Volume II: The Labour Government and the Polaris Programme, 1964-1970
1st Edition
By Matthew Jones
January 23, 2019
Volume II of The Official History of the UK Strategic Nuclear Deterrent provides an authoritative and in-depth examination of the British government’s strategic nuclear policy from 1964 to 1970. Written with full access to the UK documentary record, Volume II examines the controversies that ...
The Official History of Privatisation, Vol. II: Popular Capitalism, 1987-97
1st Edition
By David Parker
July 24, 2018
This is Volume II of Professor Parker's authoritative Official History of Privatisation, covering the period from the re-election of Margaret Thatcher in 1987 to the election of Tony Blair in 1997. Volume II considers in detail several of the major privatisations, including those of airports, steel...
The Official History of the Cabinet Secretaries
1st Edition
By Ian Beesley
January 29, 2018
This book is the official history of British Cabinet Secretaries, the most senior civil servants in UK government, from the post-war period up to 2002. In December 1916 Maurice Hankey sat at the Cabinet table to take the first official record of Cabinet decisions. Prior to this there had been no ...
The Official History of Privatisation Vol. I: The formative years 1970-1987
1st Edition
By David Parker
January 20, 2016
This first volume of the Official History studies the background to privatisation, and the privatisations of the first two Conservative Governments led by Margaret Thatcher from May 1979 to June 1987. First commissioned by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair as an authoritative history, this volume ...
The Official History of Britain and the Channel Tunnel
1st Edition
By Terry Gourvish
September 18, 2015
Commissioned by the Cabinet Office and using hitherto untapped British Government records, this book presents an in-depth analysis of the successful project of 1986-94. This is a vivid portrayal of the complexities of quadripartite decision-making (two countries, plus the public and ...
The Official History of the Joint Intelligence Committee: Volume I: From the Approach of the Second World War to the Suez Crisis
1st Edition
By Michael S. Goodman
July 08, 2015
Volume One of the Official History of the Joint Intelligence Committee draws upon a range of released and classified papers to produce the first, authoritative account of the way in which intelligence was used to inform policy. For almost 80 years the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) has been a ...