Since the 1880s unemployment has been a leading issue in British public life and an important concern for economic and social policy. This book considers the strategy of the Thatcher government in the light of historical comparisons and suggests that many errors and false assumptions of earlier periods have been repeated in the 1980s. The author provides an examination of unemployment an Britain, and looks at the ways in which professional economists and policy-makers have approached the problem and argues that policy, despite appearances, has been determined primarily by political and economic considerations rather than through changes in economic theory. Sean Glynn's other books include The Road to Full Employment, Interwar Britain, The State and Primary Production and Urbanization in Australian History.