Peace and Power in Cold War Britain - by Christopher R Hill (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Peace and Power in Cold War Britain explores the ban the bomb and anti-Vietnam War movements from the perspective of media history, focusing in particular on the relationship between radicalism and the rise of television. In doing so, it addresses two questions, both of which seem to recur with each major breakthrough in communications technology: what do advances in communications media mean for democratic participation in politics and how do distinctive types of media condition the very nature of that participation itself?

In answering these, the book views the ban the bomb and anti-Vietnam War movements in relation to communication power and media discourse. It highlights how these movements intersected with parts of public life that were being transformed by television themselves, shaping struggles for social change among activists and public intellectuals on the streets, in the Labour Party and in the law courts.

The significance of this relationship between media and movements was complex and wide-ranging. Christopher R. Hill demonstrates that it contributed to the enrichment of democracy in Cold War Britain, with radicals serving to innovate and pioneer creative forms of political expression from both in and outside of media organisations. However, the movements increasingly succumbed to news coverage and values that revolved around human interest and violence, feeding into the revolutionary spectacle of 1968 and the turn towards identity politics.

Review Quotes

A revealing book about the interactions between the media and political movements in sixties Britain. It blends history and communications theory to offer new insights into the cultural Cold War and to challenge prevailing views on Britain's radical decade.
Tony Shaw, Professor of Contemporary History, University of Hertfordshire, UK

Christopher Hill's new book is especially welcome at a time when the political environment is ever more fraught and divided, while protest movements, both left and right, seek to use new media to win support in a rapidly changing landscape. He has written a persuasive and salutary study of the interactions of media organizations with civil society and the state.
Michigan War Studies Review

This important book reveals how radical politics and new communications technologies were deeply entangled in the history of Cold War-era Britain. Drawing on extensive original research into the anti-nuclear movement, Christopher R. Hill shows how activists reconfigured existing traditions of political protest for a mass media age. It will be of great interest to scholars in history and communications studies.
Helen McCarthy, Reader in Modern British History, Queen Mary University of London, UK

About the Author

Christopher R. Hill is a Research Fellow at Birmingham City University, UK. He is a cultural historian of modern Britain with interests in broadcasting and the press, decolonisation, nuclear weapons and social movements.