Nigel Yates (1944-2009) was Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Wales, Lampeter, and is widely regarded one of the world's leading historians of religion in modern Britain and Europe. His recent publications include Eighteenth Century Britain: Religion and Politics 1714 1815 (Pearson 2007).

Nigel Yates brings together the religious and social dimensions of the 1950s and 60s and examines the enormous changes in moral attitudes that took place in these two decades. Much of the popular literature on post-war Britain tends to present the 1950s as a period of continuing repression and respectability in the area of private and public morality, and the 1960s as one in which there was rapid social change. Using a wide range of contemporary sources - books (including novels), magazines, newspapers, advertising, fashion catalogues, films and television, as well as a number of significant archive collections - Nigel Yates argues that changes in attitudes to religion and morality in the 1960s were only made possible by developments in the 1950s.

Nigel Yates

Cover page

Title-page

Imprint

Dedication

Illustrations

Preface

Introduction

1. The churches and religious attitudes

2. Foreign influences and the broadening of British culture

3. Male fantasies, female realities and the sexual revolution

4. The legislative framework for moral change

5. The censorship of public entertainment: theatre and live performances

6. The censorship of public entertainment: cinema and television

Conclusion

Appendices

Notes

Search items

Nigel Yates brings together the religious and social dimensions of the 1950s and 60s and examines the enormous changes in moral attitudes that took place in these two decades.

Nigel Yates (1944-2009) was Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Wales, Lampeter, and is widely regarded one of the world's leading historians of religion in modern Britain and Europe. His recent publications include Eighteenth Century Britain: Religion and Politics 1714-1815 (Pearson 2007).

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Fresh insights on the cultural and ecclesiastical debate are offered in a new and extremely fluent book by Nigel Yates. It is based upon a wide range of primary and secondary sources, including several archives. Especially skillful use is made of a broad base of evidence from the theatre, cinema and television, while some discussions are enlivened by the author’s own reminiscences. The central thesis of the book is that, while there were undoubtedly major changes in both the religious and moral climates between 1950 and 1970, ‘the popular image of the 1950s being the last decade of respectability before the rot set in during the 1960s’ is incorrect. Rather, the process of transition was more continuous, slower and less dramatic than is often imagined. The so-called religious revival of the early 1950s was ‘very fragile’, while ‘the “swinging sixties” … really only touched a small proportion of the population of Britain, and most of them lived in London.’ Five of the six substantive chapters focus on the dynamics of moral transformation, with Christianity in something of a bystander role. These sections are undoubtedly the volume’s strength. ‘The churches and religious attitudes’ are the subject of the first chapter, which includes a relatively brief and slightly disappointing discussion of patterns of religious affiliation and attendance. The engagement with puritanical religious moralism is wonderfully compelling and my favourite thread in this scholarly writing. A leading, respected and sadly deceased church historian leaves us this thorough, engaging and original work.

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