Peter Mandler
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Routledge,
Aeon,
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Articles by Peter Mandler
‘The Edge of Revolution’, ‘Britain’s Revolutionary Summer’ and ‘Nine Days in May’ review
In 1976, on its 50th anniversary, the General Strike of May 1926 could still be understood as a staging post in the growth of trade union power with which the reading public was then very familiar. The miners’ strike of 1972 led to power blackouts and some exceptional outbreaks of violence. The miners’ strike of 1974 inflicted more power cuts and a three-day working week, and ultimately consolidated Labour’s majority in the second election of that year.
Up in the Air: A History of High-Rise Britain
On 16 May 1968, Ivy Hodge got up to make an early morning cuppa. She lived alone at flat 90 on the eighteenth floor of Ronan Point, a brand-new tower block built for Newham Council at Canning Town in the east London Docklands. She lit the gas on her hob and the next thing she remembered was picking herself up off the kitchen floor. Ivy was lucky. The explosion brought down one whole corner of the 22-storey block, killing five residents and injuring seventeen more.
‘Remembering Peasants’ by Patrick Joyce review
If like me you are a baby boomer of European extraction, then odds are that some of your grandparents were peasants. One of my grandmothers was born in a sod cabin of her father’s own construction on the Nebraska plains. One of my grandfathers made his living buying hides from peasants and selling them to leather makers in Slovakia.
Long Live the Robbins Principle! By Professor Peter Mandler
This blog was kindly written for HEPI by Professor Peter Mandler. Peter teaches Modern British History at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, and is the author of The Crisis of the Meritocracy: Britain’s Transition to Mass Education since the Second World War (2020). This blog is in a series that HEPI is running to mark the 60th anniversary of the Robbins Report’s publication in October 1963.
‘A Northern Wind: Britain 1962-65’ by David Kynaston review
Since the 1990s three historians have entered the race to document as thickly as possible the postwar history of Britain. Peter Hennessy was the first starter, in 1992, but distracted by other concerns soon fell off the pace, managing to reach the early 1960s in three volumes. Dominic Sandbrook entered next, in 2005, cheating a little by starting at 1956, and has since yomped through the decades, producing five volumes taking us up to 1982. But perhaps slow and steady wins the race.
A New Path to Diversity
A New Path to Diversity The Supreme Court is poised to overturn race-based affirmative action. But preferences based on socioeconomic disadvantage—which are both politically popular and legally sound—could produce similarly high levels of diversity. Richard D.
REF 2028? Think Again
This blog was written by Peter Mandler, Professor of Modern Cultural History at the University of Cambridge. Peter is on Twitter @PeterMandler1. This is the fourth in a series of blogs reflecting on the REF. The full list of blogs in the series can be found here. Following the announcement of the results of REF2021, join us for a short ‘In Conversation’ with David Sweeney, Executive Chair of Research England, at 3pm on Thursday.
(Yet Another) Crisis of the Humanities
This blog was contributed by Peter Mandler, Professor of Modern Cultural History at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and the author of The Crisis of the Meritocracy: Britain’s Transition to Mass Education since the Second World War (Oxford University Press). Peter is on Twitter @PeterMandler1. This is the second in a series of blogs reflecting on the Humanities this week, following HEPI Director Nick Hillman’s blog yesterday which you can read here.
Government and HE: The Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing
This blog is by Peter Mandler, who is Professor of Modern Cultural History at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and the author of The Crisis of the Meritocracy: Britain’s Transition to Mass Education since the Second World War (Oxford University Press).
Snakes and Ladders
Vol. 43 No. 8 · 22 April 2021 Stefan Collini refers to the ‘unaccountable power of the distant executives of a for-profit academy chain’ (LRB, 1 April). But no such entity as a ‘for-profit academy chain’ exists – indeed legislation specifically excludes for-profit organisations from the academy programme. (Much to the chagrin of companies such as Cognita, which would like to have been involved in this Labour-initiated scheme).
Trust in Change
A leader in the Daily Telegraph, published on 25 September and headlined ‘The National Trust needs to drop its woke nonsense’, propounded a series of theses about what the National Trust, the charity for heritage conversation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, exists to do (Scotland has a separate organisation). The job of the Trust, which has 5.6 million members and an annual income in excess of £630 million, ‘is to conserve, not comment’, was one thesis. But to conserve what?
Why Boris Johnson should stop trying to rewrite history
In Parliament yesterday, while fumbling to explain why Britain’s Covid death rate has been so much higher than Germany’s or Italy’s, the prime minister fell back on an old historical trope.
After the Victorians
After the Victorians: Private Conscience and Public Duty in Modern Britain ISBN | Quantity: Shopping Cart Summary Items: Routledge & CRC Press eBooks are available through VitalSource. The free VitalSource Bookshelf® application allows you to access to your eBooks whenever and wherever you choose. Mobile/eReaders – Download the Bookshelf mobile app at VitalSource.com or from the iTunes or Android store to access your eBooks from your mobile device or eReader.
News from Otherwhere
Though hardly so central today, anthropology had some claim in the middle of the 20th century to be a kind of ‘master key’, unlocking the secrets of humanity for large swathes of the educated public. It had achieved this status in relatively short order by, if not vanquishing, at least challenging two alternative ways of thinking about human development.
The UK General Election: What Comes after Anti-Politics?
Subscribe Magazine Online Blog Podcasts Events Login About Us Donate Contact Advertise Newsletter The UK General Election: What Comes after Anti-Politics? Three years of procedural maneuvering, bombastic rhetoric, and policy paralysis in Parliament—not only on Brexit but on everything else—have produced new depths of distrust in government in the lead-up to the election.
Britain Divided | Dissent Magazine
To begin with: Britain is a very divided society. That may sound anodyne—most Western societies today are divided by steep inequalities; surely Trump’s America is deeply divided too.
Why the Labour Party is Not in Such a Mess After All | Dissent Magazine
There were many losers in the UK’s general election—most obviously, the Conservatives, who had enjoyed a 25-point lead in the polls at the start of the campaign and ended up squeaking out a 2-point victory and lost their majority in Parliament.
Britain's EU Problem is a London Problem
Britain’s EU Problem is a London Problem Huge swathes of England outside of London voted to Leave the European Union, because of a feeling of exclusion that has been growing since Thatcher’s 1980s. Peter Mandler ▪ June 24, 2016 Yesterday the UK voted to leave the European Union after thirty years of a halting, sometimes noble, often messy experiment in international cooperation. In my circles—professional, well-educated, Cambridge and London—the principal reaction was incredulity.
The Left Case for Brexit
The Left Case for Brexit In casting its lot with the undemocratic European Union, the British left is making a profound mistake.
The humanities are booming, only the professors can’t see it – Peter Mandler | Aeon Essays
The humanities are in crisis. It’s become orthodoxy. In fact, so much attention has been paid to the ‘crisis of the humanities’ that few have stopped to ask if there actually is such a crisis. Over just the past few generations, enormous changes have transformed higher education. These changes have brought a greater proportion of 18-year-olds to university.
The Swaddling Thesis
In 1957, in a remote village on the south coast of Bali, the young anthropologist Clifford Geertz was watching a cremation ceremony spill down a hillside when the crowd suddenly parted, ‘as in a DeMille movie’, and there, propped up on her walking stick, stood Margaret Mead. She was on her way to India for ‘a World Conference on some sort of World Problem’, and had tracked down Geertz and his wife on her ‘notoriously bad ankles’. Would they care to join her and a Javanese art dealer for dinner?
Margaret Mead: Waging War with Anthropology
After the 24-year-old anthropologist Margaret Mead returned to New York from Samoa in 1926, bearing tales of free love from the South Seas, she rapidly became one of the most famous women in the world.
Margaret Mead: Waging War with Anthropology
After the 24-year-old anthropologist Margaret Mead returned to New York from Samoa in 1926, bearing tales of free love from the South Seas, she rapidly became one of the most famous women in the world.
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