This book examines the emergence of modern working-class youth culture
through the perspective of an urban history of post-war Britain, with a
particular focus on the influence of young people and their culture on
Britain's self-image as a country emerging from the constraints of its
post-Victorian, imperial past.
Each section of the book - Society, City, Pop, and Space - considers in
detail the ways in which working-class youth culture corresponded with a
fast-changing metropolitan and urban society in the years following the
decline of the British Empire.
Was teenage culture rooted in the urban experience and the
transformation of working-class neighbourhoods? Did youth subcultures
emerge simply as a reaction to Britain's changing racial demographic? To
what extent did leisure venues and institutions function as laboratories
for a developing British pop culture, which ultimately helped Britain
re-establish its prominence on the world stage?
These questions and more are answered in this book.