Roots, Radicals and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World

A Rough Trade, Mojo, and FT Book of the Year

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE

Emerging from the jazz clubs of the early 1950s, skiffle – a uniquely British take on American folk and blues – caused a sensation among a generation of kids who had grown up during the dreary post-war years. Teenagers were looking for a music of their own in a culture dominated by crooners and mediated by a stuffy BBC.

Against a backdrop of Cold War politics, rock and roll riots, and a newly assertive working-class youth, Billy Bragg meticulously charts – for the first time in depth – the history, impact, and lasting legacy of a movement that sparked a revolution and fundamentally shaped pop culture as we have come to know it.