Alwyn Turner

My interests lie primarily in the history of Britain in the second half of the 20th century, and particularly in the interaction between politics and popular culture. In an era dominated by the mass media, it is often the artefacts designed to be disposable – pop music, stand-up comedy, paperback fiction, sport, pornography, television sitcoms and soaps – that reflect the state of society most authentically and that pre-empt political developments.

My published work centres on a trilogy of books: Crisis? What Crisis? Britain in the 1970s, Rejoice! Rejoice! Britain in the 1980s and A Classless Society: Britain in the 1990s. Spinning off from this are writings on specific cultural phenomena in Britain – Biba, Portmeirion, Terry Nation – and on the music and iconography of the first decades of rock and roll.