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Synopsis
Arts in Society comprises a set of lucid essays on photography and painting, films, design, TV and theatre, buildings and towns – discussion points about culture in the 60s and 70s. Contributors include: Angela Carter on male pin ups and on make- up John Berger on war photography and on Francis Bacon Michael Wood on John Lennon, Roy Lichenstein, A Clockwork Orange, Bob Dylan and WC Fields Reyner Banham on the potato crisp and on container terminals EP Thompson on Britain’s penchant for humbug Paul Barker on “Art Nouveau Riche” and on Kes Paul Meyersberg on If… Andrew Weiner on T. Rex and on Tom Jones Dennis Potter on TV Plays Albert Hunt on Joe Orton and on Morecambe and Wise …and more Paul Barker is the former editor of New Society. He regularly contributes to Radios 4 and 3, and the national press, on social and cultural issues. He also writes regularly for Prospect.
"Always the essays are strong and authoritative..."
"These aren't simply essays in criticism. The pieces are about how things actually work: why they are what they are."
"These days, every university seems to have a chair in Big Brother studies. But back in the Sixties, treating popular culture and mass entertainment as worthy of intelligent, passionate analysis was something of a revolutionary idea... These might be archive pieces, but they deserve to be rediscovered and embraced by the critics of today."
"Arts in Society draws on an extraordinary galaxyof talent... (it) quickly became a classic... immensely enjoyable...reaches out to a broad audience rather than a specialist audience; (giving) the maverick view."
First published in 1977, this path-breaking collection of essays on modern culture from New Society magazine retains all its vigour and verve... The sheer quality of writing, and of thinking, keeps them fresh.
Boyd Tonkin
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