In his book on the 1945 Labour government's economic policy, Jim Tomlinson makes a useful addition to an already large literature, and in two ways particularly. First, he synthesizes an extensive number of secondary works, often providing useful correctives to dominant interpretations on the basis of his own research. Second, he relates Labour's economic policy in this period to the party's ideas about socialism, both the assumptions with which it arrived in office in 1945 and the ideas that emerged while it was in power. The result is a book that sets the policies that Labour followed in a broad intellectual and political context, thus making as much sense as we are likely to of the economic decisions that Labour leaders made during the one moment in history (until Tony Blair, of course) when they had a large enough parliamentary majority to do what they wanted.