Description
This book endeavours to map out a part of the intellectual history of the twentieth century which once almost faded from memory but which now resonates with startling relevance. In 1941 William Temple, then Archbishop of York, called for a 'Christian Social Philosophy', voicing a concern that had been gathering momentum all through the 1930s, had been sharpened by the challenge of authoritarian regimes, left and right, and had formed the focus of the Oxford conference of Church, Community and State in 1937. Although it had been the First World War which set in motion the great social changes of this period, a conscious response began to surface only at the very end of the 1920s. In the spring of 1930 a new voice on the BBC aroused unprecedented interest: John Macmurray's twelve talks on 'Reality and Freedom' can be seen as one starting-point for the extraordinary outburst of thought and discussion on people and society which developed in the following decade.
