Juke box Britain
Americanisation and youth culture, 1945–60Adrian Horn
"Cogently structured and thoroughly engaging, Horn's study is a welcome resource—not only for design historians but also for social and cultural historians and anyone with a yearning for the sounds and style of the 1950s juke box."
Bill Osgerby, Design History
British teenagers witnessed immense cultural change in the period following the Second World War. There were less than 100 juke boxes in Britain in 1945 and over 15,000 by 1958. Over the same period there was a similar unprecedented expansion of casual youth venues in the form of cafés, snack, milk and coffee bars where young people could hear the sounds of hot American jazz and rock ‘n’ roll.
It has been a common assumption among academics and cultural historians alike that British youth between 1945 and 1960 underwent a period of massive ‘Americanisation’. Juke box Britain contests this view maintaining that American popular-cultural influences were not examples of cultural domination but simply influences that combined with existing styles to create distinctly British style fusions.Juke box Britain is suitable for students of cultural, social and design histories as well as cultural studies, and provides fascinating reading for youth culture and juke box enthusiasts.
For a sample chapter, please click here.
Contents:-
Plates
Tables
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Context – British acceptance and resistance to American popular
culture pre-1945
2. Americanisation and the post-war juke box
3. American music, juke boxes and cultural resistance
4. British teenagers
5. Spivs and Teds: changing meanings of ‘rebellious’ male dress styles
6. Cutting your coat according to your cloth: Dress styles for young
women after World War II
7. Venues: From arcade to high street
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Adrian Horn is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of History at Lancaster University, and an Associate Lecturer in Social Sciences with the Open University
Studies in Popular Culture
234x156mm 240pp
hb 9780719079078 17 April 2009 £55.00
pb 9780719083662 01 October 2010 £14.99
36 b/w and 6 colour illustrations
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