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Andrew Rosen, The Transformation of British Life 1950—2000 (Manchester: Manchester University Press 2003)

IN 1950 MOST British people would not have owned their own homes nor had access to their own telephone. If they were lucky enough to afford vacations, they would have holidayed within the borders of Britain, perhaps even within a hundred mile radius. Europe would have been a place only soldiers and the wealthy would have experienced. Food afforded a similar parochialism. The most exotic fare most Britons would have had in 1950 was probably also the least welcome: the snoek, a fish of questionable taste from the waters off South Africa, pushed into service as an alternative staple during the lean years of austerity. Nineteen-fifty also saw the highest level of political mobilization in the twentieth century; in the election of that year, 12.5 million people voted for the Conservatives, with 13.2 million voting Labour.

Half a century later, the picture was, unsurprisingly, very different, as Andrew Rosen shows in his survey. Home owner- ship was enjoyed by 69% of the population. Not only did virtually everyone own or have access to a phone, but also to a range of other electronic devices only dreamed of by bespectacled boffins in 1950: stereos, televisions, DVD and video recorders, and mobile phones. Southern Europe had become, by 2000, the target of millions of package holiday-makers, soaking up the sun and cheap alcohol in destinations like Ibiza and Mallorca. And, even outside of London, Britain itself had the smack of cosmopolitanism in its beverages and food. One could begin the day at Caffe Nero, served an Italian cappuccino by a Spanish barista, hunker down on a prepared avocado wrap at Prêt à Manger, and, inevitably, begin the evening with the country's prevailing national dish, chicken masala. The richness of culinary life was, however, matched by a leanness of political culture. In the election of 2001, voter turnout barely scraped 60% in most of the country.

Andrew Rosen's interesting, if not entirely satisfying, book provides good snap-shots of several of the major contours of what he calls the 'transformation' of Britain in this period. He argues that there are three major areas of such transformation: first, a notable increase in the standard of living matched with greater individual freedom; second, the decline of respect for longstanding institutions such as the monarchy and aristocracy, religion, the organized working class, and marriage; and, finally, the growing diversity and porousness of British life and culture, transected by new generational and ethnic identities and increasingly coloured by connections of varying strengths to both America and Europe. There is little to argue with in this picture. As Rosen shows, the Britain of 2000 is a more complex and less easily categorized society than it was in 1950. He has a good eye for the broad reach of this complexity. The impact of immigration on post-war Britain was, of course, to substantially revise notions of Britishness and urban society. But, to return to food, it can also be seen in the growth of Indian restaurants. In 1995, there were 10,000 Indian restaurants in Britain, employing between 60,000 and 70,000 workers and with a turnover of £1.5 billion, more than the coal, ship-building, and steel industries combined. This says something, of course, about not simply identity but the economy as well.

Rosen also shows how, in the midst of this 'transformation,' there are constants in British society. In 1950, class was the most important category of social identity. It seeped through every aspect of national life, from politics to work to education. Fifty years later, as Rosen argues, class is a less obvious, but still powerful force in people's lives. There is a sobering section in the book in which Rosen shows just how social class continues to determine fundamental conditions of physical health and social opportunities. Childhood in Britain remains a sphere in which class is played out, from health at birth to the way that primary and secondary education shapes and often constrains individuals' chances in life. Despite the considerable expansion of universities in the 1960s and again in the 1990s, the old bastions of privilege, Oxford and Cambridge, still monopolize influence and power in Britain to a surprising degree. As recent controversies demonstrate, both universities are still seen as closed to many state school students. The recent historiography of 19th and 20th century Britain has laudably embraced empire and culture; it is a pity that this movement has occurred not merely by jettisoning serious thought about class but actually by denigrating it as a valid category. By contrast, Rosen points to class and the persistence of serious inequality as abiding characteristics of modern Britain.

There are, however, several problems with the book. Despite a broad sweep enlivened by many interesting details, it feels slight. In part, I think, this has to do with the nature of the book's research. This is not a monograph, but a survey. Nonetheless, it does feel at points that it has been written largely based upon the statistics in the various volumes of British Social Attitudes. I felt rather battered with poll results after a while and left seeking shelter in a stronger analytical voice. At the same time, while I agree with Rosen's overall arguments, I had less sense of what he thought were the engines of this change. He runs the rule over politics, without giving a particularly compelling argument for the partial abandonment of one style of consensus for another, from Attlee and Macmillan to Thatcher and Blair. Rosen similarly traces Britain's change from a manufacturing economy to one based upon service and consumption without asking in a very rigorous way why this happened. Sometimes he offers very subjective observations on particular social problems, but these hang as impressionistic responses rather than strong or original arguments.

There is also an uneven tone to the book. It does not seem to have a clear direction, which might frustrate its use in teaching. In the last section, alongside chapters on Europe and America, Rosen offers an overview of post-war architecture. This is welldone as a stand-alone piece and it does give some sense of the curious cross-currents in arguments about Britishness and public space, but why architecture and not, say, visual culture like film or television? Or popular leisure? I was not convinced that there was a strong argument for architecture on its own as a bellwether of change in Britain. Ultimately, The Transformation of British Life 1950–2000 gives an interesting, but incomplete picture of British society.


Stephen Brooke York University

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