The Edinburgh Festivals

Culture and Society in Post-war Britain

Angela Bartie

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English

Edinburgh University Press
21 August 2014

The Arts: General & Reference; Pageants, parades, festivals; Social & cultural history

Post-war culture and society and the Edinburgh Festivals The Edinburgh Festival is the world's largest arts festival. It has also been the site of numerous 'culture wars' since it began in 1947. Key debates that took place across the western world about the place of culture in society, the practice and significance of the arts, censorship, the role of organised religion, and meanings of morality were all reflected in contest over culture in the Festival City.

The Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama sought to use culture to bolster European civilisation, for which it was considered for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952. The Church saw culture as a 'weapon of enlightenment', the labour movement as a 'weapon in the struggle', and the new generation of artistic entrepreneurs who came to the fore in the 1960s as a means of challenge and provocation, resulting in high profile controversies like the nudity trial of 1963 and the furore over a play about bestiality in 1967.

These ideas - conservative and liberal, elite and diverse, traditional and avant-garde

all clashed every August in Edinburgh, making the Festival City an effective lens for exploring major changes in culture and society in post-war Britain. This book explores the 'culture wars' of 1945-1970 and is the first major study of the origins and development of this leading annual arts extravaganza.

Key Features: First critical history of the first twenty five years of the world's biggest arts festivalUses festivals (and key theatre ventures) in Edinburgh as a lens for understanding wider social and cultural change in post-war BritainActs as a practical exercise in the application of cultural criticism by combining social and cultural history with insights from cultural studies and contemporary festivals and events literatureDraws upon a range of archival sources, including original oral history interviews with key players in the arts scene of Edinburgh and beyondProvides a valuable addition to the history of the arts in British society in the period c. 1945-1971, and to our understanding of cultural and social change in post-war Britain

By: Angela Bartie
Imprint: Edinburgh University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 15mm
Weight: 420g
ISBN: 9780748694051
ISBN 10: 0748694056
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 21 August 2014
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Angela Bartie is Lecturer in History at the University of Strathclyde and co-editor of The International Writers' Conference Revisited: Edinburgh, 1962.

Reviews for The Edinburgh Festivals: Culture and Society in Post-war Britain

'Angela Bartie's history of Edinburgh's summer festivals, from their post-war creation to the early years of the 1970s, deserves to become established as the pre-eminent text on its subject. Written with an eye for detail, an authoritative tone and frequent footnoted references to a broad range of sources, Bartie's history sets itself apart from many of the previous histories of the festivals.' --Book of the Old Edinburgh Club ...makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of a critical time. --Christopher Hilliard, University of Sydney Journal of British Studies 53.3