Most of the notes for class 4 seem to have vanished into cyberspace, leaving only the powerpoint slides (on icampus). Fortunately, this is a period extremely well covered by Andrew Marr (as you will all be aware, but here it is again).The main events outlined in class were:
- the coronation: a moment of jubilation, the first mass ceremony of the television age (Princess Diana's funeral, at the end of our period, makes a nice complement), and a time for new hopes of British "greatness" emerging from wartime deprivation and postwar austerity.
- British achievements in science and technology (the first jetliner, the first nuclear facility for non-military purposes, an independent atomic bomb, describing the structure of DNA, etc.), giving science-fiction writers the impression that Britain would stand at the forefront of the future
- the attempts to maintain some independent standing in world affairs, and to reassert British power in Malaya and Kenya
- the Suez Crisis, for which follow this link (it's important, so do click), revealing the illusory nature of any hopes for Britain being an independent world force; two of the films used in class are here
- a long period of economic growth and prosperity, despite on-going inefficiencies in British industry
- the "Profumo Affair" (covered in detail by Marr)
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