Conclusion

In Part 3, I have stressed Britain and France’s different approaches to post-war reconstruction. Britain experienced greater continuity because, in the words of Jean Monnet, Britons ‘had not known the trauma of wartime occupation; they had not been conquered, their system seemed intact’. ¹ Monnet thought that the British had made two essential contributions to civilisation: ‘respect for freedom, and the working of democratic institutions‘, which they ‘felt in their bones’. ² These, and an innate reluctance to change, were, according to Monnet, important elements of their national character that shaped their rather idiosyncratic approach to post-war reconstruction as well as to Europe. My evidence suggests that his view is applicable, but not completely, to the relationship between scientists and the pharmaceutical industry.