Establishment and Meritocracy

Like so many of his postwar generation in Britain, Peter Hennessy climbed the ladders of opportunity set up by the 1944 Education Act, designed to craft a more meritocratic society. In this highly personal book, Hennessy examines the rise of meritocracy as a concept, and the persistence of the shadowy notion of an establishment in Britain s institutions. He asks whether these elusive descriptors still have explanatory power in understanding British society and institutions, and why they continue to fascinate us. But to what extent are these both imagined concepts? Hennessy asks whether British meritocracy actually rose in the years after 1945? And, if so, to what extent has it now stalled?"