BRITAIN AFTER WORLD WAR II

WELFAR STATE JULY 1945 = the Labour Party won the elections.

This new government Protecting and promoting the welfare of its citizens in

such areas as health, unenployment and pension; It was talking over the control of power

(electricity,gas,iron)

transport (airlines and railways)

credit (the Bank of England)

For the next 25 years both Conservative and

Labour parties agreed to Govern in

looking after the interests and welfare

of everyone.

This new kind of state

became known as

WELFARE STATE

Elizabeth II1952 = George VI unexpectedly died

in February and he was succeded by

his daughter Elizabeth II

She was crowned in 1953

The general euphoria was mingled

wiht a sense of anguish

and restlessness This sense caused by the

aftermath of Second World War

and Cold War.

IMMIGRANTSIn these years immigrants (from West Indies subcontinent)

were attracted to Britain by the promise of

employment affluence

They concentrated in inner-city areas

but the unemployment began to spread

especially in the heavy industry

The discontent had begun also with new

social problems such as the first race

riots, a new generation influenced

by drugs, violence and the new

danger of pollution.

THE THATCHER YEARS Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: She was call for individual enterprise and responsability

that gave English society a new start in 1980. Can be defined as Liberal: as that she wanted- free trade;- Low tariffs;- Industries were denationalised.

≠ Conservative believed that industry wuold be

more efficient in private hand

November 1990 = she resigned and she was succeded by

JOHN MAJOR

He was to follow Thatcher’s ideas

From Blair to the present day May 1997 = the elections were won by TONY BLAIR

his goverment produced - Leader of Labour Party;

costitutional reform that - Held liberal views on matters of education,

partially decentralized the UK welfare but conservative views on low

and order issues and family values. 2001 = Blair won a second electoral victory with Labour Party In 2005 he had an agreement with Gordon Brown his chancellor

He would resign and he succeded by Gordon Brown that became

Leader of Labour Party Prime Minister In 2010 the elections were won by DAVID CAMERON, a Conservator.

GEORGE ORWELL Born Eric Blair in India in 1903,

Orwell was the son of a minor colonial official.

He was taken to England by his mother, and was educated at Eton where he began to develop an independent-minded personality, indifference to accepted values, and professed atheism and socialism.

He became an Indian Police where he remained from 1922 to 1927.

FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCES Back in London, he started a social experiment: wearing

second-hand clothes, he spent short periods living in common lodging-houses in the East End where he directly experienced poverty and learned how institutions for the poor people, worked.

He decided to begin publishing his works with the pseudonym of George Orwell:

He chose George because it had an englishness about it, and Orwell because it was the name of a river.

He wrote narrative books like:

-Down and Out in Paris and London

-Burmese day

-In Homage to Catalonia.

In 1936 he married Eileen who shared his interests in literature and socialism: in the same year Orwell was commissioned by a publisher to investigate conditions among the miners in the industrial North, where he stayed for two months.

In December 1936 Orwell went to Catalonia with his wife to report on the Spanish Civil War.

Back in England the Orwells adopted an infant child and called him Richard, but George suffered from bronchitis and Eileen was to die during an operation in 1945.

AN INFLUENTIAL VOICE OF THE

20th CENTURY

When the Second World War

broke out, Orwell moved to

London and his last book

Nineteen Eighty- Four

was his most original

novel: it was published in 1949

and soon became a best-seller.

Orwell died of tuberculosis the

following year (1950). 

THE ARTIST’S DEVELOPMENT Orwell’s various experiences abroad

contributed to his unusual ability to see his country from the outside, he was receptive to new ideas and impressions.

His desire to inform, to reveal facts and draw conclusions from them, led him to believe that writing interpreted reality and therefore served a useful social function.

Orwell believed that the writer should be independent, that no good writing could come of following a party line.

SOCIAL THEMES

Orwell was a book-reviewer, critic,

Politic journalist, used a realistic language,

he insisted on tolerance, justice and in

human relationships, and he presented a

devastating critique of totalitarianism,

against the violation of liberty and helping

his readers to recognize tyranny in all its forms.

Marrone Miriam Casti Eva