Inside the Department of Economic Affairs

• Diary of a well-known figure: Sir Samuel Brittan is an influential Financial Times journalist
• Unique primary source document for a period of change in British government
• Provides insight into inner workings of a government department
• Scholarly edition with extensive introduction and notes

Readership: Scholars and students of twentieth-century political and economic history

Edited by Roger Middleton, Professor of the History of Political Economy and Head of the School of Humanities, University of Bristol

Professor Roger Middleton, AcSS has the chair in the history of political economy and is head of the School of Humanities at the University of Bristol. He is the author of a number of works on British economic policy, performance and the history of economic thought since the late nineteenth century. He is currently working on a variety of projects, on neo-liberalism in Britain, of which Brittan's diary is one of a number of publications on the theme of 'Brittan on Britain'; on economic policy in the 1930s; and is also the founding general editor of the British Historical Statistics Project which will produce a multi-volume and online successor to Mitchell's British Historical Statistics. He is Reviews Editor, Economic History Review. His books have won awards: twice CHOICE outstanding book (for my 1996 and 1998 books). He has been honoured as Academician of the Social Sciences (AcSS).

"From the perspective of the serious scholar ... this is a most valuable resource ... This is a book for the academic connoisseur, who will be indebted to the immense skill of its editor, Roger Middleton, as much as to the diarist himself." - Nicholas Crafts, Financial Times

"Professor Middleton is to be commended for the diligence with which he has edited the book" - Nigel Lawson, Standpoint

"The diary has been expertly edited by Roger Middleton, who contributes a most valuable introduction that provides the background to the making of economic policy." - Vernon Bogdanor, New Statesman

The Department of Economic Affairs
1: Introduction
2: The Significance of the DEA
3: The Origins of the DEA
4: The DEA and the Institutions of Economic Policy
5: Brittan and the DEA
6: Postscript
Samuel Brittan, The Diary of an Irregular, 1964-6
Appendices
I: Dramatis Personae
II: DEA Ministers and Senior Officials
III: Calendar of Key Events
IV: Contemporary Economic Statistics and Later Revisions