No Future - Matthew Worley
Thanks to exposure to the sound, politics and attitude of punk in my teens, I have become a keen observer of this youth culture. There’s been many a book on this most visceral of scenes over the years. Most of the books have been passable at best, shoddy cash-ins and little more than pulp fiction at worst. There have, however, been diamonds such as Jon Savage’s seminal England’s Dreaming, John Robb’s Punk Rock: An Oral History or Alvin Gibb’s regrettably out of print Destroy: The Definitive History of Punk.
Worley’s No Future can be welcomed into that company with open arms. Subtitled Punk, Politics and British Youth Culture 1976-1984 and written by someone who is both a co-founder of the Subcultures Network and Reading University’s Professor of Modern History, this is not going to be your standard punk text. Yes, it is more academic than most of the books I have read on this subject but, whilst it is informative and educational, it is also ENTERTAINING and, given the number of notes, a surprisingly easy read.
The acknowledgments section is a veritable who’s who of the scene. There are quotes that I have never read and illustrations that I have never seen before. The political side is, not unexpectedly, heavy, with Worley exploring the political, social and economic circumstances that gave rise to punk. Along with examinations of both the left and far-left socialist, communist and anarchist constituents, there is also commentary on the far right racist, fascist elements that have, to a degree, been written out of punk’s popular history.
This is one of the best of the books I have read in this subject. Because of the academic sociopolitical content, this would not be the first book I would recommend for the curious newcomer. It would however be amongst the top three on my reading list.
8/10
