The Tyranny of Nostalgia: Half a Century of British Economic Decline

The Tyranny of Nostalgia: Half a Century of British Economic Decline was published in May 2023. To order a copy, with free UK postage and packing, see below.

The performance of the British economy over the past fifty-odd years does not make for comforting reading. Indeed, the story is a depressing catalogue of misapprehensions, missteps, wasted opportunities, crises and humiliations, with all-too-familiar problems arising time and again and yet never being satisfactorily addressed.

All nations and their economic policymakers are to a certain extent prisoners of their history, but this seems to apply more to the UK than to other countries. Nostalgia for the great days of the past has become tyrannical – and is in some sense embodied in the form of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s famous ‘budget box’, made for William Gladstone in the 1850s and only passed over to a museum in 2010. Nostalgia has led to wishful thinking, and this has been the underlying sentiment driving poorly thought through – sometimes even panicky – initiatives that were blindly borrowed from elsewhere, that flew in the face of experience, or that were drawn from theoretical and political extremes.

This book describes and interprets the economic and political history of the past half a century, examining the challenges confronted by successive governments and their Chancellors, the policies employed for good or ill, and – running through it all – the desperate search for a panacea that could arrest the nation’s relative decline and return the country to its supposed former glories.

The Tyranny of Nostalgia: Half a Century of British Economic Decline can be ordered with free UK postage and packing through our online shop:

https://lpp-books.sumupstore.com/product/the-tyranny-of-nostalgia-half-a-century-of-british-economic-decline

If anyone wishes to order five or more copies, please email lpp@londonpublishingpartnership.co.uk as discounts may be available.

Praise for The Tyranny of Nostalgia

“Russell’s brilliant book does us all a favour, … giving us an excellent economic history of Britain since the gloss peeled off the Keynesian welfare state in the 1970s. He shows us how each administration was effectively handed a set of problems to solve, how they each tried to solve them in the shadow of the prior administration’s failures, and how that process always produced the next set of problems.”

— From the foreword by Mark Blyth, William R. Rhodes ’57 Professor of International Economics at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University

“This powerful and elegant account of the twists and turns in British macroeconomic policy should be essential reading for students and practitioners alike. Russell Jones’s analysis of the past half a century of British economic life – and particularly of the run-up to Brexit and of its subsequent implementation and its disastrous consequences – is absolutely stunning.”

— William Keegan, senior economics commentator for The Observer

“For at least half a century, British economic policy has been inept and capricious, with politicians of all parties labouring under the delusion that the country is still a major economic power. For much of that time Russell Jones has had a ringside seat observing their many mistakes and misfortunes. It is hard to read his clear-sighted and highly readable account and remain optimistic about the UK economy’s next 50 years.”

— Professor Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and author of GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History

“The complex and persistent woes of British economic developments over the past fifty years are covered in fascinating detail by Russell Jones in this joyously readable book. The book works brilliantly both for those that have, like me, shared Jones’s path through the world of high finance and for those that haven’t but want to try and understand the role of individual politicians and policymakers, and the circumstances surrounding their vain attempts to steer the UK to a more fruitful pasture.”

— Lord O’Neill, Chairman of the Council of the Royal Institute of International Affairs

“From Heath to Truss, a highly readable account of what’s gone wrong with UK economy.”

— Alastair Campbell, host of “The Rest Is Politics” podcast

“If you’re after a recent economic history of the UK, which vividly illustrates how we’ve lurched from one model to another, this is the book for you. Highly recommended.”

— Ed Conway, economics and data editor for Sky News

Russell Jones has been a professional macroeconomist for almost forty years. Over the course of his long career, he has at different times been domiciled in London, Tokyo, Abu Dhabi and Sydney, and he has applied his skills to all the major asset classes. He has worked for a number of major financial institutions and provided advice not just to leading asset managers but also to several governments and central banks. He is the author of The Itinerant Economist.