Modernity Britain, 1957-62

By David Kynaston

Subjects: Great britain, social life and customs, Great britain, history, 20th century, Politics and government, Great britain, politics and government, 1945-1979, Nineteen fifties, Great britain, social conditions, New York Times reviewed, Social life and customs, Social conditions, History, Nineteen sixties

Description: "The late 1950s and early 1960s was a period in its own right--neither the stultifying early to midfifties nor the liberating mid- to late-sixties--and an action-packed, dramatic time in which the contours of modern Britain started to take shape. These were the 'never had it so good' years, in which mass affluence began to change, fundamentally, the tastes and even the character of the working class; when films like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and TV soaps like Coronation Street and Z Cars at last brought that class to the center of the national frame; when Britain gave up its empire; when economic decline relative to France and Germany became the staple of political discourse; when 'youth' emerged as a fully fledged cultural force; when the Notting Hill riots made race and immigration an inescapable reality; when a new breed of meritocrats came through; and when the Lady Chatterley trial, followed by the Profumo scandal, at last signaled the end of Victorian morality."--Publisher's website.