''New Society'' was a weekly magazine of social inquiry and social and cultural comment, published in the United Kingdom from 1962 to 1988. It drew on the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, psychology, human geography, social history and social policy, and it published wide-ranging social reportage.

History

The magazine was launched by a small, London-based independent publishing house, Harrison Raison, which in 1956 had successfully launched ''

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publish ...

'', a weekly magazine to serve the natural sciences. The idea was to create a comparable magazine about the social sciences. The cultural commentator

Robert Hewison Robert Alwyn Petrie Hewison (born 2 June 1943)‘HEWISON, Prof. Robert Alwyn Petrie’, Who's Who 2008, A & C Black, 2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 200accessed 26 March 2008/ref> is a British cultural historian. He was educated ...

wrote that ''New Society'' became "a forum for the new

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...

", created by the expansion of higher education in Britain from the early 1960s. ''New Society'' was usually perceived as centre-left, but it was fiercely non-partisan and never endorsed any political party.

Timothy Raison Sir Timothy Hugh Francis Raison (3 November 1929 – 3 November 2011) was a British Conservative politician. Early life and education The son of publisher and editor Maxwell Raison, general manager of '' Picture Post'', and his wife Celia, Ra ...

, its founding editor (1962–68), was later a

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

MP from 1970 until 1992. In Raison's opinion, ''New Society'' sought "to mirror, to analyse, to understand, not to exhort or moralise." It tried to see the world as it was, not as it was supposed to be. These aims were continued and developed under the editorship of Paul Barker (1968–86), who was described by the labour historian

Eric Hobsbawm Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm (; 9 June 1917 – 1 October 2012) was a British historian of the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism and nationalism. A life-long Marxist, his socio-political convictions influenced the character of his work. ...

as the "most original of editors". In the magazine's pages "ideas were always more important than ideology". The historian

E. P. Thompson Edward Palmer Thompson (3 February 1924 – 28 August 1993) was an English historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is best known today for his historical work on the radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in ...

wrote that "''New Society''s hospitality to a dissenting view" was "evidence that the closure of our democratic traditions is not yet complete". ''New Society'' saw itself as being in the documentary lineage of '' Picture Post'',

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalit ...

Mass-Observation Mass-Observation is a United Kingdom social research project; originally the name of an organisation which ran from 1937 to the mid-1960s, and was revived in 1981 at the University of Sussex. Mass-Observation originally aimed to record every ...

and the documentary films of

John Grierson John Grierson (26 April 1898 – 19 February 1972) was a pioneering Scottish documentary maker, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. In 1926, Grierson coined the term "documentary" in a review of Robert J. Fl ...

. Timothy Raison had been on the staff of ''Picture Post''. By contrast with other London-based magazines of opinion, ''New Society''s emphasis was strongly non-metropolitan, and it preferred to focus on "the Other Britain". Two of the most influential issues of the magazine were : 1. A special issue, "Non-Plan : an experiment in freedom," 20 March 1969, in which the design historian

Reyner Banham Peter Reyner Banham Hon. FRIBA (2 March 1922 – 19 March 1988) was an English architectural critic and writer best known for his theoretical treatise ''Theory and Design in the First Machine Age'' (1960) and for his 1971 book ''Los Angeles: Th ...

, the urban geographer Peter Hall, the architect

Cedric Price Cedric Price FRIBA (11 September 1934 – 10 August 2003) was an English architect and influential teacher and writer on architecture. The son of an architect (A.G. Price, who worked with Harry Weedon), Price was born in Stone, Staffordshire ...

and Paul Barker argued jointly that much town and country planning was misguided and counter-productive and should be scrapped. 2. The issue of 17 June 1976, which broke the

Official Secrets Act An Official Secrets Act (OSA) is legislation that provides for the protection of state secrets and official information, mainly related to national security but in unrevised form (based on the UK Official Secrets Act 1911) can include all infor ...

by reprinting cabinet minutes. Ministers were discussing ways to curtail benefit payments to British families. The plans were dropped. The confrontation was an important step on the long road to the enactment of a

Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act * ...

. The magazine's independence ended in 1988, when it was absorbed into the ''

New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...

''. In 2010 the V&A held an exhibition of documentary photographs from ''New Society''. Three collections of essays from ''New Society'' were published: ''One for Sorrow, Two for Joy: Ten Years of "New Society"'' (1972); ''Arts in Society'' (1977); and ''The Other Britain'' (1982). Paul Barker (ed) ''The Other Britain'' (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982)

Contributors

Contributors to ''New Society'' included: *

John Berger John Peter Berger (; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism '' Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to the ...

Asa Briggs Asa Briggs, Baron Briggs (7 May 1921 – 15 March 2016) was an English historian. He was a leading specialist on the Victorian era, and the foremost historian of broadcasting in Britain. Briggs achieved international recognition during his lon ...

David Cannadine Sir David Nicholas Cannadine (born 7 September 1950) is a British author and historian who specialises in modern history, Britain and the history of business and philanthropy. He is currently the Dodge Professor of History at Princeton Un ...

Geoffrey Cannon Geoffrey Cannon (born 1940) is an English author, journalist and former magazine editor, and scholar. From 1968 to 1972, he was the music critic for ''The Guardian'', a role that made him the first dedicated rock critic at a British daily newsp ...

Angela Carter Angela Olive Pearce (formerly Carter, Stalker; 7 May 1940 – 16 February 1992), who published under the name Angela Carter, was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picar ...

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...

* Stanley Cohen * David Donnison *

Mary Douglas Dame Mary Douglas, (25 March 1921 – 16 May 2007) was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture and symbolism, whose area of speciality was social anthropology. Douglas was considered a follower of Émile Durkheim ...

* Frank Field * Leslie Finer * Peter Fuller *

Ray Gosling Raymond Arthur Gosling (5 May 1939 – 19 November 2013) was an English broadcaster, journalist, author, and gay rights activist. He wrote and presented several hundred television and radio documentaries and regional programmes for BBC Radio 4 ...

* Peter Hall * Peter Hamilton * Paul Harrison *

* Douglas Johnson *

R. W. Johnson R. W. Johnson (born 1943; Richard William, "Bill" ) is a British journalist, political scientist, and historian who lives in South Africa. Born in England, he was educated at Natal University and Oxford University, as a Rhodes Scholar. He was a ...

* John Lahr * R. D. Laing *

Colin MacInnes Colin MacInnes (20 August 1914 – 22 April 1976) was an English novelist and journalist. Early life MacInnes was born in London, the son of singer James Campbell McInnes and novelist Angela Mackail, who was the granddaughter of the Pre-Rap ...

George Melly Alan George Heywood Melly (17 August 1926 – 5 July 2007) was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer, and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for '' The Observer''; he also lectured on art history, with a ...

Ann Oakley Ann Rosamund Oakley (née Titmuss; born 17 January 1944) is a British sociologist, feminist, and writer. She is professor and founder-director of the Social Science Research Unit at the UCL Institute of Education of the University College Lon ...

* Geoffrey Parkinson *

Dennis Potter Dennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935 – 7 June 1994) was an English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist. He is best known for his BBC television serials '' Pennies from Heaven'' (1978), ''The Singing Detective'' (198 ...

Alan Ryan Alan James Ryan (born 9 May 1940) is a British philosopher. He was Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford. He was also Warden of New College, Oxford, from 1996 to 2009.. He retired as Professor Emeritus in September 2015PeAlan Ryan' ...

* John Ryle * Caroline St John-Brooks * Jeremy Seabrook * Laurie Taylor *

* Ian Walker *

Colin Ward Colin Ward (14 August 1924 – 11 February 2010)

* Peter Willmott * Michael Wood *

Barbara Wootton Barbara Wootton, Baroness Wootton of Abinger, CH (14 April 1897 – 11 July 1988) was a British sociologist and criminologist. She was the first of four women to be appointed as a life peer, entitled to serve in the House of Lords, under the L ...

* Michael Young

Bibliography

* Paul Barker (ed) (1972) ''One for Sorrow, Two for Joy: Ten Years of "New Society"'', Allen and Unwin, * Paul Barker (ed) (1977) ''Arts in Society'' (reprint: 2006, Five Leaves Publications, ) - contains essays by

and

, among others * Paul Barker (ed) ''The Other Britain'' (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982) * Mary Banham, editor, ''A Critic Writes : Essays by

'' *

Jenny Uglow Jennifer Sheila Uglow (, (accessed 5 February 2008).
(accessed 19 August 2022). born 1947) is an English biographer, hi ...

, editor, ''Shaking a Leg:

, Journalism and Writings'' (Chatto & Windus, 1997)

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 1962 establishments in the United Kingdom 1988 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Alternative magazines Cultural magazines published in the United Kingdom Defunct magazines published in the United Kingdom Independent magazines Magazines established in 1962 Magazines disestablished in 1988 Magazines published in London Science and technology magazines published in the United Kingdom Weekly magazines published in the United Kingdom