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Distributed for University of Wales Press

Swansea University

Campus and Community in a Post-War World, 1945–2020

Distributed for University of Wales Press

Swansea University

Campus and Community in a Post-War World, 1945–2020

Founded in 1920, Swansea University is now the third-largest university in Wales, serving nearly twenty thousand students This volume celebrates the centennial of the university, offering a portrait of postwar academic and social change in Britain and its universities, as well as an exploration of shifts in youth culture, and the ways higher education institutions have interacted with their areas and communities. The book covers a range of important themes and topics, including architectural developments, international scholars, the changing behaviors of students, protest and politics, and the multilayered relationships that are formed among academics, young people and their wider communities. Unlike most institutional histories, it takes a bottom-up approach, paying particular attention to the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of students and non-academic staff, members of the university community who are normally sidelined in such accounts. As it does so, it draws on a large collection of oral history testimonies collected specifically for this book, and, throughout, it explores how formative, paradoxical, and unexpected university life can be.
 

352 pages | 93 halftones, 2 maps | 6 1/4 x 9 1/4

History: General History


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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

Table of Contents

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

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