This impressively researched and controversial book presents an alternative account of the development of one of the greatest states of the twentieth-century. It represents the culmination of David Edgerton's long-standing research on the relationship between science, technology, the military and the British state. Edgerton seeks to put the warfare state back into the history of twentieth-century Britain by restoring militarism, science and technology to that history and by challenging conventional accounts that centre on the notion of the welfare state and the narrative of British decline.