British Cultural Identities

British Cultural Identities assesses the degree to which being British impinges on the identity of the many people who live in Britain, analysing contemporary British identity through the various and changing ways in which people who live in the UK position themselves and are positioned by their culture today.

This new edition is updated to include discussion of key events and societal shifts such as the 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum, the 2015 British General Election, the growing emphasis on devolution, the 2012 Olympic Games, the new generation of royals, UKIP and the Euro crisis, the response to fundamentalism and the proliferation of social networking. Using examples from contemporary and popular culture, chapters cover a range of intersecting themes including:

■ place and environment

■ education, work and leisure

■ gender, sex and the family

■ youth culture and style

■ class and politics

■ ethnicity and language

■ religion

■ heritage.

Accessible in style, illustrated with photographs, tables and timelines and containing discussion questions, cultural examples and suggestions for further resources at the end of each chapter, British Cultural Identities is the perfect introductory text for students of contemporary British society.

Mike Storry was Senior Lecturer in English at Liverpool John Moores University and is now a freelance writer. He co-edited the Encyclopaedia of Contemporary British Culture (Routledge, 1999) with Peter Childs.

Peter Childs is Professor of English at Newman University Birmingham and author of many books on twentieth-century culture and literature, including Modernism (third edition, Routledge, 2016).