What do they know of the contemporary, who only the contemporary know? How, without some historical context, can you tell whether what you are observing is genuinely novel, and how can you understand how it has developed? It was, not least, to guard against the unconscious and ahistorical Whiggery of much contemporary comment that this series was conceived. The series takes important events or historical debates from the post-war years and, by bringing new archival evidence and historical insights to bear, seeks to reexamine and reinterpret these matters. Most of the books will have a significant international dimension, dealing with diplomatic, economic or cultural relations across borders. In the process the object will be to challenge orthodoxies and to cast new light upon major aspects of post-war history. You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The Young Conservatives were primarily a social club, hosting dances, beauty contests, car rallies and winning endorsements from sports stars. They made a virtue of this apolitical reputation to recruit a mass, middle-class membership, and with rhetoric of service and citizenship embedded themselves in local civil society. This article reflects on why this associational culture has been neglected by political and social historians. In the approach of Raphael Samuel's ‘Lost world of British Communism’, it explores the worldview and lifestyle of YCs in 1950s and 1960s Britain, drawing on national, local, and oral sources. Boasting of being ‘the free world's largest youth political movement’ it was a considerable political resource and confounds Conservatism's aged public image in this period. The article accounts for the Ycs' falling membership through the 1960s and discusses its legacy. Decline came as it experienced social and cultural change, as the value of mass party membership diminished and as, after the Macleod report, YCs sought to become more conventionally ‘political’. The resulting debates about politics–social mix are illuminating about political culture more generally. It argues the YCs were not simply victims of social change, but that the decision to become ‘political’ was also a factor. Until the later 1960s it contends the YCs attest to the persistence of strands of Conservatism described by interwar historians like McKibbin and Light – an associational appeal, whose light touch deftly avoided the appearance of being partisan in anything other than name.
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