The Working Class in Mid-Twentieth-Century England

At first sight, monographs about the ‘working class’ in twentieth-century England can seem quaint: rooted in a pre-Thatcher age of History Workshop conferences at Ruskin College and in once-pioneering but now passé ‘history from below’ courses at the new campus universities of the ʼ60s and ʼ70s. The very term ‘working class’ is itself evocative of symbolic episodes in recent history such as ‘Scargill’s Strike’ of 1984–5. These two volumes, both from Manchester University Press, could easily have featured on a publisher’s list from the 1970s or 1980s. Each, however, offers a distinctive contribution to an enduring theme in British social history—working-class cultures and communities over the twentieth century—and each suggests ways in which that theme can still illuminate wider social and cultural change. The two authors represent two generations of British social history. Mark Clapson is an established scholar with roots in traditional archival social history, and a product of

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