Introduction

Abstract

The death of Winston Churchill in 1965 turned Britain upside down. For contemporary journalists, the event symbolised the definitive end of London being the centre of the world as Churchill stood as one of the last protagonists in the twentieth century in power for everything that has made Britain great under the reign of Queen Victoria, particularly the extension of the Empire and the manifestation of ruling overseas. While defending the political heritage of Victorian power during both world wars, his death had been soon also brought in correspondence with a fast-changing society that was moving away from Victorian values and remaining pattern of a class society and its order whose manifestation had been in historical research traditionally located into the period of the late nineteenth century in which Victoria had been the head of Britain. The introduction gives readers a first impression of key themes scholars look at when placing the 1960s into twentieth-century history of Britain and provides first insights into what aspects the urban life of working-class youth was affected by them. It outlines the structure of the book, gives an overview of the main arguments of the upcoming chapters, and illuminates how an urban history of 1960s Britain and the history of working-class youth culture benefits from the approach of the book that is a spatial history of working-class youth culture between approximately 1957 and 1971. Therefore, it shows which topics move into the centre of an analysis when bringing urban change and youth cultural formation in 1960s Britain together and how the re-reading of those research fields, which—as, for example, the relationship between Britain’s working-class and Commonwealth newcomers—had been part of the study of youth culture in Britain, provides new and refreshing research results.KeywordsYouth studies1960s BritainPost-war historySpatial turnSpatial historySubcultural historyPost-war LondonTeenage revolutionGenerationsSwinging SixtiesLong SixtiesBaby-boomerUrban cultureUrban change