The Decline of Industrial Britain examines why the British economy has grown more slowly than the economies of the United States, Germany, Japan, Canada, France, and Italy since 1870, and why the British standard of living has fallen in relation. The first synthesis of Britain's long-term economic performance in more than a decade, this book addresses both specifically economic questions and broader social-historical questions.

Written in clear and accessible prose, The Decline of Industrial Britain provides a concise survey of recent scholarly work on British economic and business history. Its emphasis on the central importance of entrepreneurs and managers to the long-term performance of the British economy challenges the cliometric and institutionalist interpretations that have dominated recent thinking about Britain's economic decline and directs attention to the complex sociocultural origins of the ``British disease.''