The Radical Fifties by Sophie Scott-Brown HARDBACK 9780198915652

Oxford University Press

The Radical FiftiesActivist Politics in Cold War Britain\nAuthor(s): Sophie Scott-Brown\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Oxford University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Oxford University Press\nISBN-13: 9780198915652, 978-0198915652\nSynopsis\nThe 1950s are usually portrayed as conservative, conformist, and apathetic, but was there more to this much-maligned decade than that? In Britain, the convergence of conflicting political moments-the Cold War, the Bomb, the rise of America, the decline of the empire, welfare, and affluence- compelled a rapid rethinking of what it meant to 'be political' along with a series of experiments in democracy and democracy education. The Radical Fifties examines the distinctive 'activist politics' emerging from this by focusing on the entwined histories of its main protagonists: the Freedom Press anarchists, the New Left Club socialists, and the Direct Action Committee pacifists.\n\nInstead of gaining or influencing power in a traditional sense, these gr?