ABSTRACT
The Shadows of Economic History' picks up on the debate and places the recent crisis in the architectural and building industry in an historical context. If the threat of economic disintegration wasn't bad enough, the construction industry remained highly dangerous a situation greatly exacerbated by the casualisation of employment. Neo-liberalism was successful in creating a smoke screen in which the real and tangible nature of political and economic change was camouflaged. Architecture played a significant role in supporting and creating such myths. Whereas the architectural community after the Second World War had seen itself as a handmaiden of progressive social change with nearly half the profession working for the public sector. The construction boom that spanned the advent of the new millennium was seductive and intoxicating. Light years away from the dream of managed equilibrium, or even a temporary downturn in the trade cycle, the construction sector faced the most ruthless slump in its fortunes that anyone could remember.
