The British Motor Industry 1945 1994

A fascinating and well-researched look at the British motor industry which will appeal to both academic readers and practitioners alike. Why are there now no major car manufacturers in Britain? Whisler considers this and the surrounding issues, making valuable comparisons with overseas manufacturers operating both in the UK and abroad, which provide us with additional interest and insight. Based upon careful use of company archives, this book covers in particular the issues of product development, quality, design, and range, ensuring that The British Motor Industry is destined to make a distinctive contribution to our understanding of the performance of UK manufacturers.

A fascinating and well-researched look at the British motor industry which will appeal to both academic readers and practitioners alike. Why are there now no major car manufacturers in Britain? Whisler considers this and the surrounding issues, making valuable comparisons with overseasmanufacturers operating both in the UK and abroad, which provide us with additional interest and insight. Based upon careful use of company archives, this book covers in particular the issues of product development, quality, design, and range, ensuring that The British Motor Industry is destined tomake a distinctive contribution to our understanding of the performance of UK manufacturers.

Why are there now no major car manufacturers in Britain? Timothy Whisler considers this and the surrounding issues, making valuable comparisons with overseas manufacturers operating both in the UK and abroad. This book covers the issues of product development, quality, design, and range.

First published in 1980, this book considers the British motor industry over the period between 1945 and 1979, analysing the ways in which the industry suffered a considerable decline in the post-war era, when compared to motor industries of other countries or to most other British industries. Rather than blaming labour and management, as has frequently been the case, the author argues that the decline can be traced back to poor government policy. Tracing how, when and where government policies affected the industry, the book examines policies clearly directed at the motor industry, such as transport legislation and motor taxation. In addition the work considers the consequences of many policies which were targeted only indirectly at the motor industry as the author argues that whilst government policy may have succeeded in its aim, e.g. improving employment for the balance of payments, the motor industry may have suffered as a consequence. Written in non-technical language, the reissue will be of interest to those concerned with post-war UK economic development, the UK motor industry in particular and the history of government policy in general.

Sir John Seeley once wrote that the British Empire was acquired in “a fit of absence of mind.” Whatever the truth of this comment, it is certainly arguable that the Empire was dismantled in such a fit. This collection deals with a neglected subject in post-Confederation Canadian history – the implications to Canada and Canadians of British decolonization and the end of empire. Canada and the End of Empire looks at Canadian diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom and the United States, the Suez crisis, the changing economic relationship with Great Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, the role of educational and cultural institutions in maintaining the British connection, the royal tour of 1959, the decision to adopt a new flag in 1964, the efforts to find a formula for repatriating the constitution, the Canadianization of the Royal Canadian Navy, and the attitude of First Nations to the changed nature of the Anglo-Canadian relationship. Historians in Commonwealth countries tend to view the end of British rule from a nationalist perspective. Canada and the End of Empire challenges this view and demonstrates the centrality of imperial history in Canadian historiography. An important addition to the growing canon of empire studies and imperial history, this book will be of interest to historians of the Commonwealth, and to scholars and students interested in the relationship between colonialism and nationalism.

A concise 1995 review of the strengths and weaknesses of the British motor industry during the one hundred years since its foundation.

This shortform book presents key peer-reviewed research selected by expert series editors and contextualised by new analysis from each author on how the specific field addressed has evolved. The book features contributions on the development of banking regulation in Scotland, the role of commercial banking on the functioning of the British corporate economy, the impact of British monetary policy on small firm growth, and the politics of corporate governance. Of interest to business and economic historians, this shortform book also provides analysis that will be valuable reading across the social sciences

Many people in the UK, and in other mature economies, are bewildered by the erosion of indigenous manufacturing that has taken place since the 1980s, and before. While a number of economic historians have examined this decline, to reveal the economic causes, little has been made of the underlying national and corporate cultures affecting a single corporation, in this case one comprising all of UK indigenous volume motor manufacturing. John Fenton studied the writings of researchers who have observed manufacturing decline since the Industrial Revolution, to make a case for the redirection of the culture (ways-of-life) of national and industrial leaders in order to help bring about industrial revival. New Ways for Indigenous Manufacturing recognizes the very positive contribution to the UK economy of foreign direct investment (FDI) transplants, but past applications of FDI have also yielded negative effects on native industry. The book reminds politicians of some of these dangers, and hopefully restores public confidence in them, with a promise that some patented technologies could be held by start-up companies, for national rather than overseas exploitation.