Great Britain

Holger Nehring

pp. 125-136

in: Martin Klimke, Joachim Scharloth (eds), 1968 in Europe, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008

Abstract

As in other countries, "1968" in Great Britain was more than simply a historical date. It has served as a cipher for a variety of protest movements, protest events, and processes of sociocultural change, mainly in the period from around 1965 to the early 1970s. Yet, in Britain, the year has not obtained quite the iconic status of the long 1960s in other countries around the world. Because of the diversity of issues discussed at the time and the lack of overarching reference points, such as the Nazi past in Germany or the legacy of fascism in Italy, historical time in Britain never appeared as synchronized as it was in the experiences of "1968" elsewhere. Historians of "1968" in Britain would be well advised to analyze these phenomena as processes of societal communication and self-observation in a highly complex, differentiated society, in which mass media played a key role.