Brett Bebber – författare

This collection of essays addresses research trends in the history of British leisure while also presenting a wide range of articles on cultural conflict and leisure in the twentieth century. It includes innovative research on a number of topics, including television, cinema, the circus, women’s leisure, dance, football and drug culture. It provides an excellent entry to leisure studies and history, while addressing the contributions of other disciplines and exploring key historiographical trends. Three broad topics structure the collection; cultural contestation and social conflict in leisure; regulation and standardisation; and national identity embodied in leisure and popular culture. The book will be useful to students and educators of twentieth-century and British history, as it offers accessible and topical studies that pique historical curiosity. In addition, historians, sociologists and cultural analysts of the twentieth century will find it essential for understanding pleasure and recreation in twentieth-century British society.

This study, based on government records, newspaper articles and fanzines, explores the complex interaction between politicians, police and the perpetrators of football violence. Bebber looks at how successive governments tried to impose law and order on football ‘hooligans’, whilst inadvertently escalating the violence.

In the Modern Age (1920-present) leisure became inseparable from modern life. Rising incomes, less time at work, and more forms of available recreations fostered an intensive cultivation of leisure experiences for all classes of people. Between the wars the rise of cinemas, dance halls, and sport united massive crowds in novel sensory and emotional experiences, while radio and later television completely changed participation in pleasure and conviviality. As leisure became part and parcel of everyday life, it also became linked to self-identification and identity-making. Modern leisure culture, increasingly dominated by American models, promoted the rise of new subcultures and individual expression, but also continued to be bound up in social and cultural conflict. What made leisure such a contested issue? What makes leisure – and the cultural history of leisure – so important after all? A Cultural History of Leisure in the Modern Age, with a specific focus on the United States and the Western world, presents an overview of key themes and trends in this period, with essays on: Ideas of leisure; The performing arts and their audiences; The cerebral arts and their publics; Sports and games; Holydays, holidays and tourism; The world of conviviality; The world of goods; The world of nature; Representations of leisure.A Cultural History of Leisure is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available as hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a tangible reference for their shelves or as part of a fully-searchable digital library. The digital product is available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access via www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com. Individual volumes for academics and researchers interested in specific historical periods are also available in print or digitally via www.bloomsburycollections.com.

This collection of essays addresses research trends in the history of British leisure while also presenting a wide range of articles on cultural conflict and leisure in the twentieth century. It includes innovative research on a number of topics, including television, cinema, the circus, women’s leisure, dance, football and drug culture. It provides an excellent entry to leisure studies and history, while addressing the contributions of other disciplines and exploring key historiographical trends. Three broad topics structure the collection; cultural contestation and social conflict in leisure; regulation and standardisation; and national identity embodied in leisure and popular culture. The book will be useful to students and educators of twentieth-century and British history, as it offers accessible and topical studies that pique historical curiosity. In addition, historians, sociologists and cultural analysts of the twentieth century will find it essential for understanding pleasure and recreation in twentieth-century British society.