W. Keith Hancock and Margaret M. Gowing

“ The manpower chapters of our book constitute its firmest brigade with the war-production history and, indeed, with some other histories of this series. If it be remembered that manpower signifies not merely a scarce factor of production but also the men and women of Britain, the accent will be put still more heavily on these chapters.
We must say something about our methods of design and craftsmanship. Our view of the British war economy has been a central one; it might be called the War Cabinet view or—for the crucial middle period of the war—the view of the Lord President’s Committee. ”

“ It is possible to imagine many different divisions of economic effort between the United Kingdom and the United States; we have restricted ourselves in this context as in all others, to explaining the economic effort to which the United Kingdom was in fact committed by the basic decisions of policy and strategy. ”

“ Some economists might have preferred us to follow the main economic problems straight through, and it is indeed true that many of them have a continuity which takes small account of strategical landmarks. But we are on balance convinced that our arrangement is right. We have not allowed ourselves to forget that there will be published later on a parallel series of military histories whose authors will have to reckon in each strategical period with the fighting power generated in the war economy. ”

“ But no more in science and literature than in life is caution always the supreme virtue. We have felt it right to keep our promise and produce the book within measurable distance of the end of the war. Its production will in turn facilitate editing and hasten the completion of other books in the series.
In publications of official history there is no opportunity to acknowledge the many debts of authorship that have been incurred. This, however, is a fitting place for the editor of the series to acknowledge his debt to his secretary, Miss Marjorie Eyre. ”

“ If our history of the war economy had aimed at perfection, it would have included in each chronological Part a long chapter explaining carefully how the war production sector was built up. But the positive employment of resources in the field of war industry is an immense subject. ”

“ It is possible that the published series of civil histories may approach thirty volumes; but there is no certainty that every history that has been planned will be brought to publication. The production of official history, as of other commodities, is necessarily governed by the quantity and quality of the available manpower.
The writers in this series have followed the usual critical methods of professional historians. They have, at the same time, been compelled by the unusual problems confronting them to exercise a good deal of ingenuity in their methods of research. ”

“ An outstanding example is the history of War Production, which is based on the records of four departments, not to mention the other material, governmental and industrial, that its authors have had to handle. This history, itself a series within the larger series, has been from the outset directed by Professor M. M. Postan.
It would have been easy to expand the list of research projects; but the projects actually chosen constituted a programme arduous and ambitious enough for the small band of civil historians. ”

“ We believe that economic events should be linked with strategical events and have therefore written short strategical sketches to preface each period. We believe also that a controlled economy cannot be understood without some overall view of the controlling institutions: hence our short studies—shorter by far than the original drafts—of the central administration. ”

“ But the requirements of a war-economic history are different. Much of its concern must be with the methods of economic mobilisation. The period of trial and error and slow beginnings is full of instructive experience which demands careful study. The period in which the main economic problems were mastered is no less instructive, and cannot be less briefly treated. For the United Kingdom, this period was closing in 1941. ”

“ The war economy with which we in this book are concerned is rooted in the war which the British people began to fight in September 1939, when they were but half prepared, and continued to fight until the culminating victories of 1945. We are not writing a dissertation upon the problems of war economy in general. ”

“ Many of the historians have written at very great length and with detailed attention to the technical problems in which departmental experts were immersed during the war; but the educational purpose of publication would be ill served if the published books were overcrowded with detail. Sufficient material exists, for example, for a four- or five-volume account of Food Policy; but it seems better to concentrate upon the main problems and handle them within the compass of two volumes. There will still remain a great deal of material which the Ministry of Food will find useful ”

“ The expert histories—of fuel, of food, of shipping and agriculture, and the rest—will in due course appear. This book cannot in advance distill their essence; it seeks rather to introduce them. There is a central story to be told in which each of them though it has a life of its own, will find itself reflected.
We have based our book primarily upon the records that are available at the centre of government. These records reflect the processes whereby policies originating in many departments were brought into focus. ”