Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vi
List of Figures x
List of Tables xiv
Abbreviations xv
Note on terms and place names xvii
Note on oral history interviews. xviii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 - ‘Communities of learning’: Intellectual and Economic Reconstruction, 1945–1956. 40
Chapter 2 - ‘A Quiet Revolution’: Campus and Community Life, 1947–1964. 102
Chapter 3 - ‘How in hell can we cool them down?’: Politics and Protest, 1964–1973 157
Chapter 4 – ‘Don’t be so Complacent!’: Crisis and Cutbacks, 1973 – 1988. 219
Chapter 5 - ‘Change with the times’: Marketisation and Commercialisation, 1988–2020. 272
Conclusion 330
Bibliography 340
Appendices 373

Promotional Information

• This is a book that is very different to most anniversary/institutional histories in that it takes a ‘bottom-up’ approach to its topic by focusing less on the elite decision-makers at Swansea University.

• One of the main take-home messages of the book is that university life involved, and still involves, many multi-layered paradoxes and contradictions. Conflicting ideas and behaviours can be witnessed simultaneously - as in life - and this fundamentally adds to the discussion surrounding what a university’s purpose is. The book demonstrates how universities are complex and diverse places, and not just sites of academia and scholarship.

• The book’s analysis rests on a foundation of oral history testimonies. This is not only an unusual approach to take but it ensures that the words, ideas and memories of those who lived the history permeate through the entire book.

• The oral testimonies also provide splashes of colour, humour and intrigue that you might not always find in an institutional account.

About the Author

This is an academic work that will appeal to scholars and university students. It engages with big historical debates and draws from a wide range of scholarship on universities, post-war Britain, youth culture, and modern Wales. However, it has been deliberately written in an accessible style so as to appeal to a very wide audience, including the large Swansea University alumni body. It is therefore aimed at anyone interested in the history of the University as well as post-war Britain; not just experts in specific academic fields.

Reviews

“Deeply researched and elegantly written, this book is essential reading for alumni, staff, and students at Swansea. And it deserves a wider readership. It will appeal to all historians of higher education, to policy makers and university leaders, and to anyone interested in how the past may help shape the future of teaching and research in Wales and beyond.”

 
*William Whyte, University of Oxford*