Book Review: David Fowler, Youth Culture in Modern Britain, c.1920—c.1970, Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2008, £19.99 Pb, ISBN 978—0—33359—921—5
| Published date | 01 December 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1177/14732254090090030902 |
| Date | 01 December 2009 |
| Author | Tim Newburn |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Book Reviews 305
mean that it provides a useful guide to those unfamiliar with the law and policy framework and
associated terms. In addition, the inclusion of the common international conceptual language of
youth justice – for example: ‘Criminal Responsibility’, ‘Early Intervention’ and ‘Diversion’ – as well
as other widely used terms such as ‘Restorative Justice’ and ‘Family Group Conferences’ give the
Dictionary a much broader appeal. Similarly, the inclusion of entries such as ‘Children’s Human
Rights’ and international instruments like the ‘UN Convention on the Rights of the Child’ and the
‘UN Standard Minimum Rules on the Administration of Juvenile Justice’ ensure that the Dictionary
looks beyond national boundaries.
The book also does well to bring to a wider audience some of the theoretical concepts like
‘Deterrence’, ‘Victimology’, ‘Responsibilisation’ and ‘Risk Factors’ about which much is spoken but
little frequently explained, and it thus helps to bring the meaning of these terms to those seeking a
better understanding of the underlying theory(ies) of youth justice. Indeed, whether from the the-
oretical or the practical perspective, the entries provide a comprehensive reference guide into youth
justice terms and concepts. The key strengths of the Dictionary are its inter-disciplinarity and its
combination of theory, law, policy and practice. Taken together this will ensure that the Dictionary
will fulfi l its stated aim to ‘make sense of youth justice’. For researchers, teachers, policy makers,
students and practitioners alike the Dictionary is an indispensable guide to youth justice.
David Fowler, Youth Culture in Modern Britain, c.1920–c.1970, Palgrave, Basingstoke,
2008, £19.99 Pb, ISBN 978–0–33359–921–5
Reviewed by: Professor Tim Newburn, London School of Economics, UK.
David Fowler’s book garnered some publicity on publication, largely on the basis of his assertion
that the Beatles and Rolling Stones were better understood as rather staid capitalists than youth cul-
tural icons. This, and the laudatory remarks on the cover, led me to believe that at last someone was
offering a new and exciting analysis of British youth culture.
In short, Fowler’s thesis is that it is not the 1960s but the 1920s that we should look to when
searching for the green shoots of a distinctive youth culture. To sustain this argument he focuses his
attentions on a previously somewhat ignored eccentric called Rolf Gardiner – educated at Rugby
and Cambridge – who sought to develop a youth movement in the 1920s and 1930s. Fowler’s de-
scription of Gardiner’s activities, however, suggests that they were spectacularly unsuccessful. His
‘pioneering youth culture periodical’, Youth, appears to have had a miniscule circulation and to
have been subsidized fi nancially by Gardiner in order to reach its small audience. He subsequently
enlisted a group of 15 performers to blaze a trail with an English folk dance tour of Germany. Fowler
reports that the participants found the experience exhilarating but that they ‘made little contact with
Germans’. Gardiner may be worthy of greater attention than he had previously merited, though
Fowler’s treatment hardly makes the case, but to suggest that Gardiner is a more important fi gure
in the history of British youth culture than Jagger or Lennon – even if, like Fowler, one thinks the
latter were just money-grabbing mercenaries – is thoroughly unconvincing.
After Gardiner, Youth Culture takes us through a tour of the ‘fl apper cult’ in the interwar years,
youth culture in early 20th century Ireland and juvenile delinquency in Northern Ireland before it
arrives in the 1960s. To my mind the history of the fl apper cult was one of the more worthwhile
elements in the book, telling an interesting story of what, on the surface at least, seems peculiarly
British and restrained, in comparison with its apparently bawdier American counterpart. Dance halls
also appear to have been the source of ecclesiastical concern in 1930s Ireland, with dancing being a
primary focus of youthful leisure. There is little evidence of a distinctive youth cultural style in the
South at this time.
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