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book jacket
BOOK
Title Gilded youth : privilege, rebellion and the British public school / James Brooke-Smith
Imprint London : Reaktion Books, 2019

LIBRARY / MAP CALL NUMBER STATUS MESSAGE
 Stadsbibl:Slottet vån 3 Samhällsvetenskap  373 engelska    CHECK SHELF  ---
Descript 294 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Note Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-285) and index
Introduction: Permanent adolescence -- Floreat Seditio -- Thomas Arnold's schooldays -- The secret life of the Victorian schoolboy -- Classics and nonsense -- Athletes and aesthetes -- Red Menace -- Going underground -- The ordinary elite -- Afterword
The British public school is an iconic institution, traditionally a training ground for the ruling elite and a symbol of national identity. But beyond the elegant architecture and evergreen playing fields is a turbulent history of teenage rebellion, sexual dissidence and political radicalism. This book wades into the wilder shores of public school life over the last three hundred years. It uncovers armed mutinies in the late eighteenth century, a Victorian craze for flagellation, dandy aesthetes of the 1920s, quasi-scientific discourse on masturbation, Communist scares in the 1930s and the salacious tabloid scandals of the present day. Drawing on personal experience, extensive research and public school representations in poetry, school slang, spy films, popular novels and rock music, the author offers a fresh account of upper-class adolescence in Britain and the role of elite private education in shaping youth culture. He shows how this central British institution has inspired a counter-culture of artists, intellectuals and radicals - from Percy Shelley and George Orwell, to Peter Gabriel and Richard Branson - who have rebelled against both the schools and the wider society for which they stand
Subject Endowed public schools (Great Britain) -- History
Boarding schools -- Great Britain -- History
Youth -- Great Britain -- History
History.
Classmark 373.22/20941
ISBN/ISSN 9781789140668 hardcover
1789140668 hardcover
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