Originally published in 1945, the purpose of Housing and the State, 1919-1944 was not to lay down what the scope of housing policy should be after the war in Great Britain, or what particular building programme should be adopted. The aim was rather more modest, it was to describe and explain some of the more important conditions which must be satisfied if certain types of housing policy were to be successful. It was only if the main difficulties and problems were known that a sensible choice could be made between them. It was this method of approaching the housing question that lead the author into a discussion of housing policy between 1919 and 1939. During these years the local authorities built over a million houses. This was perhaps the outstanding peace time experiment in state intervention in this country in the provision of a necessity of life, which had formerly been supplied almost exclusively by independent private enterprise. Today it can be read in its historical context.

Marian Bowley (1911-2002) was an economist and historian of economic thought.