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Dr Lawrence Black

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

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.