During the years following World War II‎,‎ Britain was plagued by privation‎,‎ xenophobia‎,‎ and humiliation from the loss of colonial territories and political power‎.‎ At the same time‎,‎ the country was in the midst of a dawning triumphalism‎,‎ seen first in the Festival of Britain‎,‎ then in the new Coventry Cathedral‎,‎ and finally in the international status accorded to British art by the early 1960s‎.‎ This book sets the visual arts in the social and political context of these complex years‎.‎Margaret Garlake establishes the intellectual‎,‎ historical‎,‎ and organizational frameworks within which art was made and received by critics and the public‎.‎ She discusses problems raised by abstract art‎,‎ links between art and politics ‎(‎culminating in the Unknown Political Prisoner competition‎)‎‎,‎ and misapprehensions concerning art from the colonial territories‎.‎ She describes such new institutions as the Arts and British Councils‎,‎ the Institute of Contemporary Arts‎,‎ and commercial galleries‎,‎ all of which played crucial roles in sustaining artists and promoting their work‎.‎ She‎.‎‎.‎‎.‎