This book offers a fully up-to-date and comprehensive guide to religion in Britain since 1945. A team of leading scholars provide a fresh analysis and overview, with a particular focus on diversity and change. They examine: relations between religious and secular beliefs and institutions the evolving role and status of the churches the growth and ‘settlement’ of non-Christian religious communities the spread and diversification of alternative spiritualities religion in welfare, education, media, politics and law theoretical perspectives on religious change. The volume presents the latest research, including results from the largest-ever research initiative on religion in Britain, the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme. Survey chapters are combined with detailed case studies to give both breadth and depth of coverage. The text is accompanied by relevant photographs and a companion website.
This new edition extends and brings up to date the story of political, economic, and social change among the British. An entirely new chapter covers the Thatcher years, discussing such events as the Falkland Island crisis and the General Election of 1983. Other sections have been revised to reflect information only recently available. Throughout, Havighurst has incorporated material from official documents, monographs, biographies, articles, and the press. His fascinating narrative fully captures the ongoing importance of change itself in shaping the character of Britain.
The UK’s Changing Democracy presents a uniquely democratic perspective on all aspects of UK politics, at the centre in Westminster and Whitehall, and in all the devolved nations. The 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU marked a turning point in the UK’s political system. In the previous two decades, the country had undergone a series of democratic reforms, during which it seemed to evolve into a more typical European liberal democracy. The establishment of a Supreme Court, adoption of the Human Rights Act, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolution, proportional electoral systems, executive mayors and the growth in multi-party competition all marked profound changes to the British political tradition. Brexit may now bring some of these developments to a juddering halt. The UK’s previous ‘exceptionalism’ from European patterns looks certain to continue indefinitely. ‘Taking back control’ of regulations, trade, immigration and much more is the biggest change in UK governance for half a century. It has already produced enduring crises for the party system, Parliament and the core executive, with uniquely contested governance over critical issues, and a rapidly changing political landscape. Other recent trends are no less fast-moving, such as the revival of two-party dominance in England, the re-creation of some mass membership parties and the disruptive challenges of social media. In this context, an in-depth assessment of the quality of the UK’s democracy is essential. Each of the 2018 Democratic Audit’s 37 short chapters starts with clear criteria for what democracy requires in that part of the nation’s political life and outlines key recent developments before a SWOT analysis (of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) crystallises the current situation. A small number of core issues are then explored in more depth. Set against the global rise of debased semi-democracies, the book’s approach returns our focus firmly to the big issues around the quality and sustainability of the UK’s liberal democracy.
The Mesolithic in Britain proposes a new division of the Mesolithic period into four parts, each with its distinct character. The Mesolithic has previously been seen as timeless, where little changed over thousands of years. This new synthesis draws on advances in scientific dating to understand the Mesolithic inhabitation of Britain as a historical process. The period was, in fact, a time of profound change: houses, monuments, middens, long-term use of sites and regions, manipulation of the environment and the symbolic deposition of human and animal remains all emerged as significant practices in Britain for the first time. The book describes the lives of the first pioneers in the Early Mesolithic; the emergence of new modes of inhabitation in the Middle Mesolithic; the regionally diverse settlement of the Late Mesolithic; and the radical changes of the final millennium of the period. The first synthesis of Mesolithic Britain since 1932, it takes both a chronological and a regional approach. This book will serve as an essential text for anyone studying the period: undergraduate and graduate students, specialists in the field and community archaeology groups.
This book explores the political ideas that shaped post-war Britain. It does so by examining the history of Penguin Books, a publisher that played an important role in circulating ideas. By situating the publisher's books in their respective historical contexts, the book constructs a new story about post-war Britain. It suggests that the wartime period ushered in a 'meritocratic moment' in Britain's political history that was eclipsed from the mid-1970s.
On 13 September 2007, Robert Peston broke the news that Northern Rock had become a victim of the global credit crunch and was seeking an emergency loan from the Bank of England. It was the latest in a long line of scoops by this award-winning journalist. Over the weeks that followed, the Government found itself exposed to the Rock to the tune of 57 billion or almost 2000 for every taxpayer. As Robert Peston shows in his fascinating new book, the seeds for the collapse of Northern Rock and the upheavals in the financial markets were sown years before. WHO RUNS BRITAIN? is the first time anyone has drawn all the threads together to weave a story thats rich in extraordinary characters and outrageous feats of economic bravado. This book is about the widening gap between the super-rich and the rest of us. It explores and explodes the myth that the financial creativity of those who are amassing these vast fortunes is good for the wider economy and for all of us. Whether youre a financial expert or just have a bank account, WHO RUNS BRITAIN? is a book you must read.
One of the educationist’s major concerns today is to find effective ways of translating new goals for the curriculum into classroom practices. American and British contributions analyse curriculum change as it actually occurs, with people, institutions and constraints of time and money acknowledged and accepted as a necessary and rightful part of the whole process. Detailed accounts are given of curriculum change in a wide variety of settings: American and English school systems, a college of education, an art curriculum project, Scottish classrooms. Analytic perspectives are employed that help to clarify the underlying forces at work. The contributors probe the adequacy of current theorizing about curriculum development, and suggest new ways of thinking about the problems involved in bringing about change.
Commercial pressures and mechanization have rendered almost unrecognizable the natural and man-made landscapes of Britain as they existed before World War I. How this happened and how we can best conserve what is left is charted using the perspective of aerial photography in this book.
Looking at decolonization in the conditional tense, this volume teases out the complex and uncertain ends of British and French empire in Africa during the period of ‘late colonial shift’ after 1945. Rather than view decolonization as an inevitable process, the contributors together explore the crucial historical moments in which change was negotiated, compromises were made, and debates were staged. Three core themes guide the analysis: development, contingency and entanglement. The chapters consider the ways in which decolonization was governed and moderated by concerns about development and profit. A complementary focus on contingency allows deeper consideration of how colonial powers planned for ‘colonial futures’, and how divergent voices greeted the end of empire. Thinking about entanglements likewise stresses both the connections that existed between the British and French empires in Africa, and those that endured beyond the formal transfer of power.
