Arthur Marwick (1936–2006)

I haven't concluded this by a long shot yet - indeed am only in the nervous nineties, one-eighth of the way - but given the horrendous and inarticulate dismissal of the book by the previous reviewer I can only suggest he was assessing either a different book or self-referencing his ability to digest a remarkably far-reaching critical analysis of a watershed era. I don't normally assess a book before I've finished reading it, but so far this is a five star volume, and to counter-balance the show more previous reviewer's dismissal I will rate it as such until persuaded otherwise ...

(one month later!)

So: no easy book to read, and day jobs so intrude. No reason, though, to revise greatly my 15% impressions. Marwick, it is true, was (he died in 2006) a pugnacious historian, unprepared to kowtow to perceived or received orthodoxies. Perhaps that is why the previous revirewer dismissed this colossal tome with his misguided monosyllable. Marwick delivers blow after blow to that which he defines as 'the Great Marxisant Fallacy', the wearing of spectacles that insist eternally on revolutionary warfare, the pitting of a persecuted proletariat against an eternal bourgeousie. Or perhaps not eternal: perhaps one day the revolution will end all injustice and the Great Marxisant Utopia will be born. But, Marwick argues, 'the long sixties', 1958-1974, was not that revolution.

Marwick casts a phenomenally wide net, an intellectual drag-net perhaps, to support his case. From the renaissance of the clitoris to the disastrous architectural obscenities of Minoru Yamasaki, from the evangelistic missions of soccer in the USA to the false eyelashes of Twiggy, from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring to Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist, from Lady Chatterley to Germaine Greer to Margaret Thatcher. Focussing on the USA, Britain, Italy and France (with occasional glances to Germany and Scandinavia), his coverage is exhaustive. (I am unconvinced that the French rugby captain in the mid-1990s was Algerian - see 754 - and assume he is referring to Moroccan-born Abdelatif Benazzi).

He writes with a slightly discursive style, occasionally intruding as a narrator, occasionally cross-referencing with awkward insertions of 'as I have said' or 'as I will argue' (e.g. 402). Given that he has written a controversial tome on beauty he may be justified in intruding with a sudden unwarranted observation regarding student radical Mario Savio's 'good looking wife' (639), but the intrusion does not assist the case he is making at that point. These are small irritations, and one suspects wild horses, let alone mere editors, could not have kept him from his quirks.

A greater irritation - if a reader chose to be irritated -would be the occassional lapse into pugnatious unprofessionalism, most famously his references to film director Lindsay Anderson's 'upper class socialist' views as 'clap-trap' (if a film-making genius) on page 140 (where he also, in my view rightly, dismisses rugby league as the 'most vicious and unglamorous of all the football codes'!) or Pakistani Trotskyite Tariq Ali's writings as 'dogmatic tosh' (634 - a page on which he returns to the sobriquet 'clap-trap', now applied to Marxist ideology). He refers frequently to 'the absurdity of Marxism' (290, 614, 733), but presents a strong case for his view, and I find little base on which to disagree. Perhaps a bizarre reference to a permanent erection in the women's dormitory at Barnard College, New York (658), left me a little nonplussed, but on the whole his occasional asides are entertaining and illustrative.

Undergirding his argument is the firm belief not only that Marxist dialectic is 'clap-trap', but that the cultural revolutions of the long sixties were personal human journeys, not imposed meta-narratives: 'The world did change, but often in far corners, out of sight of the counter-cultural impresarios, entrepreneurs, and performers, and not by way of dramatically substituting one entire culture for another' (733). To support this case this he has presented diary accounts, minutes, newspaper cuttings, the personalised observations rather than the scholarly analyses, and done so masterfully.

The optimism of the sixties was killed, Marwick argues, not by iconic moments such as Altamont's chilling rock-fest (748-9) and the brutal emergence of the Weathermen (occasion for one rare mention of Bob Dylan, who I think deserves more analysis in the narrative), the Panthers, Red Brigade and even the IRA, but by the oil crisis of 1974 (733). Hedonism is so much less attractive when the hip-pocket nerve begins to tighten in horror, and an Easy Rider escapade becomes financially unviable.

Marwick has a delightful turn of phrase: 'a new law to protect historic city centres was enacted, described by two Italian experts as having "an almist charismatic" value attached to it, meaning (I think) that this law was actually obeyed' (782). Asides such as this enhance the human warmth of his writing. Once (786) he slips into self-aggrandizement: 'as I myself have argued'. It is a rare lapse in taste. By and large he takes his reader on an exhaustive and exhausting journey through every conceivable facet of the cultural re-arrangements of his decade.

This, then, is not 'crap', as the previous reviewer has suggested, but a tour de force. Imperfect perhaps, but so universal in scope, and so enticing in style that the imperfections are overcome. I read this book to understand myself a little better - to know better the forces that shaped my world. As one inadvertantly and unknowingly dragged under the spell of Timothy Leary (310-312 and elsewhere) I was relieved to find that I was not alone. As one bemused and unconvinced by simple Marxist social analyses by lesbian separatist theorists I was pleased to find tools of critique that reassured me that vaginal orgasm was not altogether a result of bourgeois oppression.

An outstanding book, and a month of my life well spent. show less

The "Arts" hold a revered and respected place within modern Western society--but what exactly defines "culture"? What gives it this enigmatic status? What influences its composition and propagation? What controls and limitations is it subject to? And what can it achieve within our world? Arthur Marwick tackles these issues head on, with a detailed and eclectic account of the arts in the West since the Second World War. He looks at the full range of possible candidates for the category of show more "art", from both high and popular culture: from literature to pulp fiction, from art-house cinema to soap-opera, art music to rock and pop. The book also looks at the fascinating diversity of twentieth-century art in the context of the social, technological, and political events, movements, and developments that have shaped our history--such as the holocaust, television, and feminism. Marwick examines how these factors have affected the cultural output of Western society since 1945, and in turn how art has fed back its own agenda and priorities into society. show less

This book offered several excellent essays on seemingly diverse subjects, with a lot of context available and good advice to examine the historiography of the historian you are reading. The downside of reading this anthology was the juxtaposition of questions and themes introduced in the Introduction create difficulty in being able to assess what issues were being addressed, let alone what sort of narrative is created by these selections. Certainly Arthur Marwick and company have put show more together an excellent volume, and while I would recommend anyone read the chapters by Hew Strachan, Mark Harrison, and especially Anna Bravo, there are a number of articles (Mayer, Williamson, Maier, Browning) I didn't feel really added anything to points about Total War and social change, and I think could have been left out without any great loss.
The focus of the articles, especially at the end, suggests that the editors are most concerned with the move towards towards “total war,â€? an event that involves the civilian base through the bending of an entire society to the purpose of war on one hand, and made necessary due to the use of war to prove ideology. While this could suggest a move towards totalitarianism, the point made by Harrison of the necessity to “softenâ€? Soviet society in order to better motivate their citizenry in the Second World War perhaps points to a seemingly strange parallel of actual social progress accompanying horrific Total War. Indeed, (as Overy shows) the need of the Nazis to minimize the impact of the war upon their own populace underscores this point. The gains are often temporary (as Bravo points out), but often confidence is given to various sections of the populace (minorities, women, trade unions) to be able to get a better lot in post-war years. Sometimes, even the geo-political outcome leads to entirely new focuses on governance, as in the Hoffman chapter on post-Vichy France.
The construction of a narrative will always be a challenge when assembling an anthology. But in terms of presenting arguments, it seemed that sometimes the selection process was more concerned with getting the widest array of methodologies, subject matters, and ideological agendas rather than anwering the questions presented. For example, the questions “What is the relationship between Great War & revolutions?â€? and “Between Great War and rise of Fascism?â€? felt as if they were only covered as secondary or tertiary points in the articles they were even mentioned in (Bessel & Maier, respectively). When looking at the third theme “war’s relationship to revolution, civil war and genocideâ€? there is only Browning’s rather unsatisfactory essay to add to the above criticism. Despite the fact that the questions and themes posed in the Introduction didn’t always seem to fit with some of the selections, and that either the questions or the selection could have used some tweaking, I did enjoy and feel enriched by reading this book. I think “Total War and Historical Changeâ€? is a great book to read to get some ideas on the relationship war and social change have, and what level of involvement war might demand from the civilian population. show less

Class is an emotive subject, and never more so than today. It is part of the very fabric of our contemporary society and Professor Marwick's major historical study of the phenomenon is therefore of importance to anyone who is interested in the pattern of social and political life in recent years, particularly since it compares British experiences with those of France and the United States - two countries which, despite fashionable mythology, are also very class-conscious. Class is examined show more as it is actually understood by people rather than as presented by theorists and ideologues. His fascinating array of evidence - from academic writings; from official sources; from private letters; diaries and interviews; and from feature films, television and newspapers - vividly illustrates how significant class has been and still is in all three countries. This new thoroughly revised and considerably expanded edition takes account of recent research and developments and brings the analysis firmly up to the present day. show less