Capital Affairs: London and the Making of the Permissive Society

Event information

Did Britain's permissive society really start with Swinging London? Challenging the sexual myth of the 1960s and arguing that its roots lay further back in the city's post-war years, Frank Mort gives a new account of 1950s London in this talk. The diverse, but nonetheless important, roles of patrician men-about-town, young independent women, go-ahead entrepreneurs, Westminster politicians, queer men and West-Indians in opening up a new phase of post-Victorian sexual morality will all be examined as Frank looks at how sex, politics and city cultures came together to create a modern post-war British society.

Frank Mort is Professor of Cultural Histories at the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, University of Manchester. He has written and edited many books and is the author of 'Cultures of Consumption: Masculinities and Social Space in Late-Twentieth Century Britain' and 'Dangerous Sexualities: Medico-Moral Politics in England since 1830'.

To book concessionary tickets for this event please telephone Bishopsgate Institute on 020 7392 9200.