The decision to replace it with an entirely new series, instead of repairing and adding to the old one, was debatable but probably inevitable, and the new effort was entrusted to J. M. Roberts as general editor. I knew both Clark and Roberts, and what they had in common was wisdom, judgment, considerable administrative ability and diplomatic skill in handling scholarly prima donnas — all very necessary. Roberts set the series on firm foundations but died in 2003, and thus, unlike Clark, was unable to see the project through to completion. I possess six volumes so far, and am very glad to have them, for they produce in highly accessible form the results of a vast amount of research conducted since the original series was set in motion, and new ideas and insight about what the history of England should encompass. In particular, there is an outstanding volume by Gerald Harris, Shaping the Nation: England 1360-1461, which changes our concept of a difficult period, and a most enjoyable one, by K. Theodore Hoppen, on The Mid-Victorian Generation, 1846-1886. I thought I knew this epoch well but Hoppen produces some fascinating material new to me.

The new volume, Seeking a Role: The United Kingdom 1957-1970, by Brian Harrison, is the first of what the OUP calls "two free-standing volumes" to bring the series "up to the present". One significant change is that "the United Kingdom" now replaces "England", though it must be said that most previous volumes, in both series, have dealt perfectly adequately with Scottish and Welsh affairs, and usually Ireland too. More important, however, is that for the first time, in either series, the predominant narrative form is largely abandoned. The main sections are static: that is, "The United Kingdom in 1951", "The Face of the Country", "The Social Structure", "Family and Welfare", though inexplicably there is a pseudo-narrative section called "The Sixties".

Now I am not necessarily opposed to the dropping of narrative, though I wish the need for this fundamental change had been fully explained. A. J. P. Taylor believed that if you sacrificed narrative, you opened the floodgates to laziness, for it was no longer necessary to take enormous pains organising a moving structure into which everything fitted. And it is true that it is much easier to write a volume called Engineering: a Social History, than an honest, old-fashioned History of Engineering. Such a book, and there are countless such "social histories" today, may be entertaining and saleable, but when you want to look up a vital fact or date, you usually find it isn't there.

Non-narration is also contradictory, for the series as a whole is arranged in narrative order and according to the chronology of events, usually new reigns, dynasties, regimes or governments. This volume begins in 1951 precisely because that is when Clement Attlee's post-war government ended and Churchill returned to power. But the new Churchill government does not make its appearance until page 400. Again, the year 1970 was chosen to end the volume presumably because during it, Harold Wilson was booted out, and Ted Heath came in. But in the text of this book a figure which repeatedly makes its appearance is Margaret Thatcher, not just as an adumbration of things to come, but as an active agent, though in fact by 1970 she had only just reached the Cabinet, as Education Secretary. Indeed, to make the periodisation seem still more artificial, even Tony Blair makes his bow, though he did not become Prime Minister for more than a quarter of a century after the volume supposedly ends.