1968 Blwyddyn y chwyldro

Cardiff historian gives talks at major US universities

Ahead of publication of two major new books, Lecturer in Modern British History Dr David Fowler is giving a series of invited talks in the USA this autumn.

Currently researching and teaching on the Global 60s, Cultures and Communities in 20^th century Britain and Radicalism and Radicalisation in Britain since 1968, Dr Fowler begins at Cornell University with American Student Revolutionaries in Britain's "1968": a Study of the Transnational Sixties [6 September].

Following his first talk, the author of Youth Culture in Modern Britain, c.1920-c.1970: From Ivory Tower to Global Movement-A New History draws on new research for his forthcoming Marshall Bloom biography for the remaining lecture series.

US-born 1960s radical, Marshall Bloom worked for social change through his writing and social protest. He co-founded the Southern Courier, a newspaper based in Selma, Alabama, which presented full coverage of civil rights progress and served a brief term as head of the US Student Press Association before co-founding Liberation News Service, a wire service supplying copy to the rising number of underground, anti-establishment newspapers of the 1960s.

In the UK, Bloom continued his studies at the London School of Economics. Elected President of the Students Union, he had a prominent role in leading demonstrations and sit-ins in the spring of 1967 protesting at the appointment of the institution’s incoming director Sir Walter Adams before his resulting suspension and return to the USA.

The Marshall Bloom talks take place at Williams College, Massachusetts (17 September), the University of Connecticut (20 September), Yale University (date to be confirmed), Rutgers University, New Jersey (24 September), Amherst College, Massachusetts (27 September) and North Eastern University, Boston (2 October).

Dr Fowler's new final year history course The Thatcher Age: Cultural and Social Revolution in Britain, 1975-1997 explores some of the consequences of Sixties Radicalism for British politics, society and culture in late 20th Century Britain.