New times revisited: writing the history of 1980s Britain

How should historians of Britain write the history of the 1980s?

Should we see the later-twentieth century as an ‘age of fracture’? How far should the decade be associated with the emergence and consolidation of a new form of hegemonic politics associated with Thatcherism? What narratives best encapsulate the everyday and ordinary experience of the 1980s? Building on a major conference held at the University of Birmingham and the University of Warwick in 2013, Modern British Studies at Birmingham is the home of on-going research by Chris Moores, Gavin Schaffer, Matthew Hilton, Daisy Payling, Andrew Jones & Amy Edwards which unpicks and explores the history of the 1980s.