Cultural Capital: The Rise and Fall of Creative Britain

by Robert Hewison

Britain began the twenty-first century convinced of its creativity. Throughout the New Labour era, the visual and performing arts, museums and galleries, were ceaselessly promoted as a stimulus to national economic revival, a post-industrial revolution where spending on culture would solve everything, from national decline to crime. Tony Blair heralded it a “golden age.” Yet despite huge investment, the audience for the arts remained a privileged minority. So what went wrong? In Cultural Capital , leading historian Robert Hewison gives an in-depth account of how creative Britain lost its way. From Cool Britannia and the Millennium Dome to the Olympics and beyond, he shows how culture became a commodity, and how target-obsessed managerialism stifled creativity. In response to the failures of New Labour and the austerity measures of the Coalition government, Hewison argues for a new relationship between politics and the arts.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Art

288 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2014

Reviews

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am an enormous fan of Robert Hewison's work. I have read it from my first year in a history degree at the University of Western Australia. His precision, clarity and powerfully progressive politics have always provided a model for both scholarship and research. He embodies the best result when cultural studies and history paradigms align, dialogue and mesh.

Cultural Capital is the book he was always going to write, and he is the best person on the planet to write it. He investigates the trajectory and burning decline of Creative Britain as a policy and label. Everything is present in this book: a rigorous discussion of cultural value, the shift to 'creativity' to manage elitist and establishment renderings of culture, the regional development success stories, the failures, and the unmitigated mess created by the Conservatives in the movement to neoliberal 'austerity' politics and policies.

Anyone working in culture, the arts, creative industries and cultural industries must read this book. It is shocking. It is brutal. The policy mistakes are clear. So are the good intentions to make a social difference through culture. In STEM-dominated times, this book provides a reminder of the potential - still unrealized - of making good policy in the space between culture and economics.

[Eurethius Péllitièr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting discussion of how governments have torn apart the institutions and social relations to culture

[Ulrika · Rating 4 out of 5]

An essential read for anyone who works in arts and culture. Time for an updated version (unless I've missed that?)?

[Harry · Rating 3 out of 5]

what is covered is interesting, especially if you are interested in 'high' arts through a governmental lens. I felt a lot was missing, partly from this limited scope, but even within this scope I feel there's an interesting tension between New Labours focus on the arts while also strangling a fresh, homegrown music subculture through Form 696, but this is not explored at all

the focus of the book seems to be how the government failed to enable art, while largely ignoring ways that art was actively suppressed (on racist grounds)

there are certainly other examples than just form 696, and I would be interested in learning what they are/how they function/the effects

I also found the distinction between arts that cost and arts that pay

[Michael Waugh · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author doesn't seem to know the typical use of the term "cultural capital," which is somewhat akin to "privilege" as talked about in discussions of race and class. So as interesting as the discussion here might be, it isn't what the book's title suggests.

[Malcolm]

review to follow