Routledge Revivals Metropolis London 1989

First published in 1989, this book seeks to demonstrate the social and political images of late-twentieth century London -- the post-big-bang city, docklands, trade union defeats, a mounting north-south divide -- do not mark as decisive break with the past as they may appear to. It argues that the most striking thing about London's history since 1800 is the continuities and recurrences which punctuate it. The essays collected in this book focus on these themes and address important questions about class, nationality, sexual difference, and radical politics. They combine the established strengths of social history with more innovative approaches such as the history of representations.

First published in 1989, this book seeks to demonstrate the social and political images of late-twentieth century London — the post-big-bang city, docklands, trade union defeats, a mounting north-south divide — do not mark as decisive break with the past as they may appear to. It argues that the most striking thing about London’s history since 1800 is the continuities and recurrences which punctuate it. The essays collected in this book focus on these themes and address important questions about class, nationality, sexual difference, and radical politics. They combine the established strengths of social history with more innovative approaches such as the history of representations.

First published between 1975 and 1991, this set reissues 13 volumes that originally appeared as part of the History Workshop Series. This series of books, which grew out of the journal of the same name, advocated ‘history from below’ and examined numerous, often social, issues from the perspectives of ordinary people. In the words of founder Raphael Samuel, the aim was to turn historical research and writing into ‘a collaborative enterprise’, via public gatherings outside of a traditional academic setting, that could be used to support activism and social justice as well as informing politics. Some of the topics examined in the set include: mineral workers, rural radicalism, and the lives and occupations of villagers in the nineteenth century; working class association; the development of left-wing workers theatre and the changing attitudes to mass culture across the twentieth century; the changing fortunes of the East End at the turn of the century; the position of women from the nineteenth century to the present; the miners’ strike of 1984-5; the social and political images of late-twentieth century London; and a three volume analysis of the myriad facets of English patriotism. This set will be of interest to students of history, sociology, gender and politics.

European theatre has been the site of enormous change and struggle since 1960. There have been radical shifts in the nature and understanding of performance, fuelled by increasing cross-cultural and international influence. Theatre has had to fight for its very existence, adapting its methods of operation to survive. European Theatre 1960-1990, first published in 1992, tells that story. The contributors - who in many cases have been theatre practitioners as well as critics - provide a wealth of fascinating information, covering Germany, France, Poland, Italy, Spain and Sweden, as well as Britain. The book offers an historical and descriptive overview of developments across national boundaries, enabling the reader to compare and contrast acting and directing styles, administrative strategies and the relationship between ideology and achievement. Chapters trace the evolution of theatre in all its aspects, including such elements as the end of censorship in many countries, the upsurge in political and personal awareness of the 1960s, shifting patterns of state artistic policy, and the effects on companies, directors, performers and audiences. This book should be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and academics of theatre studies.

First published in 1991, this book evaluates and compares the problematic relationships that have sometimes existed between police and Afro-Caribbean people in Britain and in the United States of America. Contributors from both sides of the Atlantic assess conflicting claims from police and black communities, as to whether some police are racist or too brutal in their operations. Although this book was written in the early 90s, many of the issues discussed remain interesting and relevant to our society today.

J. A. Hobson was one of the most influential social, economic and political theorists of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. In this volume, first published in 1990, eight scholars reassess the importance and relevance of his work today and affirm him as a major British thinker. These original studies place Hobson in context by explaining his intellectual antecedents: Cobden, Ruskin, nineteenth-century social and psychological theories and economic thought. The book provides an overview of the novelty and incisiveness of Hobson's contribution to British liberal theory and radical practice. Historians, economists, social and political theorists and students of international affairs will find this an important book for a fuller understanding of early twentieth-century British progressive thought.

First published in 1992, Public Order and Private Lives is a radical examination of the political forces which shaped the law and order debate in Britain at that time. The authors offer a significant and provoking analysis of Conservative policies on crime, showing that, ironically, they created the very social conditions in which crime flourished. The book argues that the Conservative government undermined basic civil liberties by its increased use of legislation as a means of control and coercion, and as a result of this, crime increased under their governance.

When Sociological Impressionism was first published in 1981, it was the first comprehensive study on Simmel’s social theory to appear in English since 1925. A pioneering work, it did much to bring about the rediscovery of Georg Simmel as one of the key sociologists of the twentieth century. David Frisby provides a provocative introduction to aspects of Simmel’s social theory, seriously challenging many interpretations of his work, most notably the view that Simmel produced a formal sociology. By drawing on many little-known essays and pieces by Simmel and his contemporaries, the book locates him within the social and intellectual milieu in which he was working. This is a reissue of the second edition, published in 1992, which includes a new afterword confronting critical responses to the first edition. This is an important work, which will be of interest to students of sociology and social philosophy in Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.