The Evolution of National Insurance:
The Origins of the Welfare State.
Expanded edition with new Introduction by Pat Thane
Bentley B. Gilbert
Available June 2019
Edward Everett Root Publishers Co. Ltd.
EER
About this book
Professor Gilbert’s extensive researches provided much new material, for the history of how the British government created the physical, educational and welfare institutions in response to the problems of poverty and access to essential services.
This is the standard guide to this key area of public policy. It provides an analytical account of the legislative experiments by which British governments sought to provide citizens with the physical, educational and welfare institutions that became the basis of modern British systems.
The important social innovation was social insurance, which became the basic mechanism for the British welfare state and the social security framework of the United States.
Professor Gilbert’s extensive researches provided much new material, for the history of how the British government created the physical, educational and welfare institutions in response to the problems of poverty and access to essential services.
It remains the key commentary on the history of British social legislation down to the outbreak of the Great War, and for its subsequent implications.
Contents.
New introduction by Pat Thane
Foreword
Preface
Author’s original Introduction
The Eighties and the Nineties: The Two Nations
The Condition of the People
The Children of the Nation
Old Age Pensions
The Untrodden Field – Unemployment
National Health Insurance
The Establishment of National Health Insurance
Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
Bentley Brinkerhoff Gilbert served as Professor of Modern British History at The Colorado College in Colorado Springs, and was then on the faculty at The University of Illinois at Chicago. He was chairman of the History Department, as well as Dean of the Graduate College.
His books included Britain Since 1918; British Social Policy, 1914-1939; David Lloyd George: A Political Life, Vol. I, The Architect of Change 1863-1912 and David Lloyd George: A Political Life, Vol. II, The Organizer of Victory 1912-1945; and Britain 1914-1945: The Aftermath of Power. He edited the Journal of British Studies for many years.
Reviews
“This tightly packed, scholarly volume offers us by far the best account available of the late Victorian and Edwardian origins of what later was to be called ‘the welfare state’.” – Professor Asa Briggs, Political Science Quarterly.
“The best books on the launching of National Health Insurance are, unquestionably, Lloyd George’s Ambulance Wagon by W.J. Braithwaite and The Evolution of National Insurance in Great Britain. The Origins of the Welfare State by Bentley B. Gilbert.” – John Grigg.