The experiment with planning, which permeated every aspect of national life in the 1960s, is absolutely central to understanding post-war British history and its discontents. While familiar approaches to this period in British history may have focussed on the social and sexual revolution of the 1960s, or the inadequacies of economic or social policy at the time, From Dreams to Disillusionment goes beyond all this to try and reveal the true problems of planning in a so-called 'affluent society', such as it was seen at the time by the policy-making community of politicians, civil servants, academics and journalists. It uses a wide range of sources; from newly-available official government documents, political parties' files, the papers of trade unions and employer's asssociations, to the private papers of civil servants and industrialists. It demonstrates how and why the overstretched central government tried to plan the economy, and exactly why this planning eventually failed.