A government report on insurance became a wartime bestseller

In 1942, civil servant William Beveridge published a report naming five 'giant evils' to defeat after the war: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. Despite its dry title, Social Insurance and Allied Services, the public queued to buy it and it sold hundreds of thousands of copies. It became the blueprint for Britain's post-war welfare state, including the NHS in 1948.

— William Beveridge, Social Insurance and Allied Services — Cmd. 6404, 1942