Putting England Back on Top? Ian Fleming, James Bond, and the Question of England

Abstract

This article outlines and assesses the sociopolitical context of the 1950s and 1960s in Britain — the end of the time of austerity, the Suez Crisis, the declining strength of Britain as a player on the world stage — while, at the same time, taking into account the ‘cultural revolution’ that transformed London into ‘swinging London’ and saw Britain emerge as a market leader in pop and fashion. Literature reacted and responded to those political and cultural shifts. Ian Fleming's James Bond series is read here as politically charged work: by creating a British super-spy who repeatedly saves the world from imminent disaster, and thereby ‘putting Britain on top again’, Fleming tried to assert a British influence on world events that was no longer a reality.