Posts com a Tag ‘Michael Young. Social Science & The British Left/ 1945-70 (T)’

All historical actors ultimately defy our neat labels. Practically speaking however, some are more defiant than others. One such figure is the dynamo ‘social entrepreneur’, Michael Young. (1) It has become a cliché to rattle off the dizzying array of institutions, projects and ideas with which Young was involved in his long and energetic career. But then, it is difficult to resist a list as eye-catching as: the Labour Party’s 1945 manifesto; the foundational sociology text Family and Kinship in East London (1957); the concept of ‘meritocracy’; the Consumer Association and Which? Magazine; and the Open University. While Young’s professional life is tricky to pin down, its diversity–and his archive at Churchill College, Cambridge–offers a promising avenue through which to approach post-war Britain. In this rich, textured, and revelatory book, the historian Lise Butler has seized this opportunity with both hands. Leia Mais