Members

Founder and Retired member

• Dr Robert W. Dyson

Dr Lawrence Black

Lawrence Black teaches modern political and cultural history and has mainly written on the history of British political culture. His latest book, Redefining British Politics: Consumerism, Culture and Participation, 1954-70  (2010), uses samples of the interactions between social movements and political parties with socio-cultural change to probe notions of activism, apathy, post-materialism, and the shifting political identities and practices forged in the context of post-1950s affluence. He has also recently co-edited Taking Stock (2009) with Nicole Robertson, which explores the history of the Co-operative movement and consumerism in Britain and Europe. He is now working on a book for OUP about the history of shopping in modern America and Britain, collaborating with Hugh Pemberton on the history of 1970s Britain and with Steven Fielding on a new political history of modern Britain. In 2009 he was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard’s Center for European Studies. He is a member of the editorial boards of Twentieth Century British History and Contemporary British History. At Durham he convenes a Modern British Studies Seminar with Gidon Cohen in the School of Government and International Affairs. He welcomes enquiries from postgraduates working in all these areas.

Research Interests

• Modern British political and cultural history
• Political Culture: social movements, parties, identities, practices, apathy
• Consumerism, affluence, media, post-materialism, cultural politics, 'the 1970s'
• History of shopping in the UK and USA since 1899

Publications

Books: authored

• Lawrence Black (2010). Redefining British Politics: Culture, Consumerism and Participation, 1954-70. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
• Black, Lawrence. (2003). The Political Culture of the Left in Affluent Britain, 1951-64: Old Labour, New Britain?. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Edited essays

• (edited with Nicole Robertson) (2009). Taking Stock: Consumerism and the Co-operative Movement in Modern British History. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• (edited with Hugh Pemberton) (2004). An Affluent Society? Britain's Post-war Golden Age Revisited. Modern Economic and Social History. Aldershot: Ashgate.
• (co-editor) (2001). Consensus or Coercion? The State, the People and Social Cohesion in Post-war Britain. Cheltenham: New Clarion Press.

Essays in edited volumes

• Lawrence Black (2011). Crosland's Consumer Politics. In The Voice of the Citizen Consumer: A history of market research, consumer movements and the political public sphere. Kerstin Brückweh Oxford: German Historical Institute / Oxford University Press. 117-137.
• Lawrence Black (2009). "Trying to sell a parcel of politics with a parcel of groceries": The Co-operative Independent Commission and consumerism in post-war Britain. In Taking Stock. Black & Robertson Manchester: 33-50.
• Lawrence Black (2009). There was something about Mary: The National Viewers' and Listeners' Association and social movement history. In NGOs in Contemporary Britain: non-state actors in society and politics since 1945. Nick Crowson, Matthew Hilton & James McKay Basingstoke: Palgrave. 182-200.
• Lawrence Black (2007). Arts and Crafts: Social Democracy's cultural resources and repertoire in 1960s Britain. In Transitions in Social Democracy. Ilaria Favretto & John Callaghan Manchester: Manchester University Press. 149-162.
• Lawrence Black (2007). Chi ha il dito sul telecomando? Il dibattio sulla TV in Gran Bretagna: la politica del controllo culturale (o scelta di stato) e della libera scelta (o controllo a distanza). In Governare la televisione? Politica e TV in Europa negli Anni Cinquanta-Sessanta. Giulia Guazzaloca Diabasis. 46-91.
• Lawrence Black (2006). The creative industries and cultural politics in Britain from the 1960s to Cool Britannia. In The Wilson Governments 1964-70 reconsidered. Glen O'Hara & Helen Parr London: Routledge. 20-39 also published in the conference proceedings of 'Cultural Industries: the British experience in international perspective', edited by C.Eisenberg, R.Gerlach, C.Handke. Humboldt-Universität, 2006, pp.118-143.
• Black Lawrence (2004). 'Free choice lies at the core of our economic system': A comparative history of post-war British and American consumer organisations. In Affluence and Activism: Organised Consumers in the Post-war Era. Iselin Thein & Evan Lange Oslo: Oslo Academic Press. 41-60.
• Black, Lawrence. (2004). The impression of affluence: political culture in the 1950s and 1960s. In An Affluent Society?. Black & Pemberton Aldershot: 85-106.
• (with Hugh Pemberton) (2004). The uses (and abuses) of affluence. In An Affluent Society?. Black & Pemberton Aldershot: 1-13.
• Lawrence Black (2003). 'What kind of people are you?' Labour, the people and the 'new political history'. In Interpreting the Labour Party: Approaches to Labour Politics and History. John Callaghan, Steve Fielding & Steve Ludlam Manchester: Manchester University Press. 23-38.
• Lawrence Black (2001). 'Sheep may safely gaze': the left and TV, 1949-64. In Consensus or Coercion?. L Black Cheltenham: 28-49.
• Lawrence Black (2000). The Liberal party, 1918-99. In Britain, 1914-2000. D. Murphy London: Harper Collins. 137-162.

Journal papers: academic

• Black, Lawrence & Cohen, Gidon (2009). Analysing Party Activism: special edition. Parliamentary Affairs 62(2): podcast in.
• edited with Hugh Pemberton, (2009). The "Winter of Discontent" 30 years on. Political Quarterly 80:4: 553-561 - podcast in.
• with Hugh Pemberton (2009). The benighted decade: reassessing the seventies. British Academy Review vol.14: 5-7; and 'The 'Winter of Discontent' in British politics', vol.13 (2009), pp.4-6.
• (2008). The Lost World of Young Conservatism. Historical Journal 51:4(4): 991-1024.
• Black, L. (2006). 'Making Britain a gayer and more cultivated country': Wilson, Lee and the creative industries in the 1960s. Contemporary British History 20:3(3): 323-342.
• (2005). Revaluing Wilson. Parliamentary History 24(3): 378-384.
• (2005). Whose finger on the button? British TV and the politics of cultural control. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 25:4(4): 547-575.
• Black, Lawrence. (2004). Which?craft in post-war Britain the Consumers’ Association and the politics of affluence. Albion 36:1(1): 52-82.
• (2002). Labour at 100. Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts für die Geschichte der sozialen Bewegungen (ed. Stefan Berger) 27: 19-33.
• (2001). 'The bitterest enemies of communism': Labour Revisionists, Atlanticism and the cold war. Contemporary British History 15:3(3): 26-62.
• Black Lawrence (2001). Popular politics in modern British history. Journal of British Studies 40:3(3): 431-445.
• (2000). 'Still at the penny-farthing stage in a jet-propelled era': branch life on the 1950s left. Labour History Review 65:2(2): 202-226.
• (1999). Social Democracy as a way of Life: Fellowship and the Socialist Union, 1951-59. Twentieth Century British History 10:4(4): 499-539.

Media Contacts

Available for media contact about:

• History & Archaeology: 20th century British political history
• Modern History: Britain & Ireland: 20th century British political history
• Politics & Society: 20th century British political history
• Government: 20th century British political history
• Political thought & theory: 20th century British political history
• History & Archaeology: Post-1945 British social and cultural history: affluence, consumerism, television
• Modern History: Britain & Ireland: Post-1945 British social and cultural history: affluence, consumerism, television
• Social sciences: Post-1945 British social and cultural history: affluence, consumerism, television
• Sociology: Post-1945 British social and cultural history: affluence, consumerism, television

Supervises

• Miss Philippa Haughton