BOOK REVIEW / Paperbacks: The Road to 1945 - Paul Addison: Pimlico, pounds 10

Ground-breaking study of how Attlee's politics replaced Baldwin's, and the policies of a wartime government (famously, the Beveridge report) led to the creation of the welfare state. Nearly 20 years on from his book's first appearance, Addison provides an epilogue to answer his critics and to acknowledge that many institutions and attitudes which in 1975 seemed permanent were later removed by Mrs Thatcher.