Identifying 'permissive populism', the trickle down of permissiveness into mass consumption, as a key feature of the 1970s, Leon Hunt considers the values of an ostensibly 'bad' decade and analyses the implications of the 1970s for issues of taste and cultural capital. Hunt explores how the British cultural landscape of the 1970s coincided with moral panics, the troubled Heath government, the three day week and the fragmentation of British society by nationalism, class conflict, race, gender and sexuality.
Identifying 'permissive populism', the trickle down of permissiveness into mass consumption, as a key feature of the 1970s, Leon Hunt considers the values of an ostensibly 'bad' decade and analyses the implications of the 1970s for issues of taste and cultural capital. Hunt explores how the British cultural landscape of the 1970s coincided with moral panics, the troubled Heath government, the three day week and the fragmentation of British society by nationalism, class conflict, race, gender and sexuality.
John R. Weeks based his study on long-term observations made at the British Armstrong Bank in the UK. Not one person, from the CEOs to the junior clerks had anything good to say about its corporate culture, yet the way things were done never seemed to alter.
"Superb" NICK COHEN, author of What's Left? "Tremendously entertaining" DOMINIC SANDBROOK, Sunday Times "Like his previous histories of the Seventies and Eighties, A Classless Society is an extraordinarily comprehensive work. Turner writes brilliantly, creating a compelling narrative of the decade, weaving contrasting elements together with a natural storyteller’s aplomb… engaging and unique" IRVINE WELSH, Daily Telegraph "Ravenously inquisitive, darkly comical and coolly undeceived... Turner is a master of the telling detail" CRAIG BROWN, Mail on Sunday When Margaret Thatcher was ousted from Downing Street in November 1990 after eleven years of bitter social and economic conflict, many hoped that the decade to come would be more 'caring'; others hoped that the more radical policies of her revolution might even be overturned. Across politics and culture there was an apparent yearning for something the Iron Lady had famously dismissed: society. The 'New Britain' to emerge would be a contradiction: economically unequal but culturally classless. Whilst Westminster agonised over sleaze and the ERM, the country outside became the playground of the Ladette. It was also a period that would see old moral certainties swept aside, and once venerable institutions descend into farce - followed, in the case of the Royal Family, by tragedy. Opening with a war in the Gulf and ending with the attacks of 11 September 2001, A Classless Society goes in search of the decade when modern Britain came of age. What it finds is a nation anxiously grappling with new technologies, tentatively embracing new lifestyles, and, above all, forging a new sense of what it means to be British. "Deserves to become a classic" EDWINA CURRIE "Rich and encyclopaedic" ROGER LEWIS, Daily Mail "Excellent" D.J. TAYLOR, Independent
This book is the first academic text to examine cynicism as a driving force in the context of post-war British culture. It maps a sensibility that transcends divisions between high and low culture, and encompasses figures such as Philip Larkin, John Lennon and Stephen Patrick Morrissey.
British films of the 1970s offers highly detailed and insightful critical analysis of a range of individual films of the period. This analysis draws upon an innovative range of critical methodologies which place the film texts within a rich variety of historical contexts. The book sets out to examine British films of the 1970s in order to get a clearer understanding of two things – the fragmentary state of the filmmaking culture of the period, and the fragmentary nature of the nation that these films represent. It argues that there is no singular narrative to be drawn about British filmmaking in the 1970s, other than the fact that these films offer evidence of a Britain (and ideas of Britishness) characterised by vicissitudes. While this was a period of struggle and instability, it was also a period of openings, of experiment, and of new ideas. Newland looks at many films, including Carry On Girls, O Lucky Man!, That'll be the Day, The Shout, and The Long Good Friday.
This collection of essays highlights the variety of 1970s culture, and shows how it responded to the transformations that were taking place in that most elusive of decades. The 1970s was a period of extraordinary change on the social, sexual and political fronts. Moreover, the culture of the period was revolutionary in a number of ways; it was sometimes florid, innovatory, risk-taking and occasionally awkward and inconsistent. The essays collected here reflect this diversity and analyse many cultural forms of the 1970s. The book includes articles on literature, politics, drama, architecture, film, television, youth cultures, interior design, journalism, and contercultural “happenings”. Its coverage ranges across phenomena as diverse as the Wombles and Woman’s Own. The volume offers an interdisciplinary account of a fascinating period in British cultural history. This book makes an important intervention in the field of 1970s history. It is edited and introduced by Laurel Forster and Sue Harper, both experienced writers, and the book comprises work by both established and emerging scholars. Overall it makes an exciting interpretation of a momentous and colourful period in recent culture.
BRITISH TRASH CINEMA is the first overview of the wilder shores of British exploitation and cult paracinema from the 1950s onwards. From obscure horror, science fiction and sexploitation, to art-house camp, Hammer's prehistoric fantasies and the worst British films ever made, author I.Q. Hunter draws on rare archival material and new primary research to take us through the weird and wonderful world of British trash cinema. Beginning by outlining the definitions of trash films and their place in British film history, Hunter explores topics including: Hammer's overlooked fantasy films, the emergence of the sexploitation film in the 1950s and 60s, the sex industry in the 1970s, Ken Russell's high camp Gothic and erotic adaptations since the 1980s, gross-out comedies, revenge films, and contemporary straight-to-DVD horror and erotica.
A unique intersection between periodical and literary scholarship, and class and gender history, this book showcases a brand-new approach to surveying a popular domestic magazine. Reading Woman’s Weekly alongside titles including Good Housekeeping, My Weekly, Peg’s Paper and Woman’s Own, and works by authors including Dot Allan, E.M. Delafield, George Orwell and J.B. Priestley, it positions the publication within both the contemporary magazine market and the field of literature more broadly, redrawing the parameters of that field as it approaches the domestic magazine as a literary genre in its own right. Between 1918 and 1958, Woman’s Weekly targeted a lower middle-class readership: broadly, housewives and unmarried clerical workers on low incomes, who viewed or aspired to view themselves as middle-class. Examining the magazine’s distinctively lower middle-class treatment of issues including the First World War’s impact on gender, the status of housewives and working women, women’s contribution to the Second World War effort, and Britain’s post-war economic and social recovery, this book supplies fresh and challenging insights into lower middle-class culture, during a period in which Britain’s lower middle classes were gaining prominence, and middle-class lifestyles were undergoing rapid and radical change.
