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The aim of this thesis is to explore the relationship between the New Left and modernisation, and to suggest that modernisation provides a powerful means of understanding the underlying dynamics of Britain's history in the 1960s. This relationship is understood in terms of a politics of space. The New Left is defined broadly for this purpose as a movement emerging from the dislocating experiences of social, cultural and physical mobility in the postwar period. What is termed the 'modernisation project' is more expansive than the technological and scientific modernisation espoused by Harold Wilson in the early 1960s and is understood to address these new, politicized forms of mobility. Whilst one element of this Politics of dislocation and mobility was a concern about affluence and new forms of cultural consumption, another was concerned with the cultural and geographical dislocation of the upwardly-mobile (sometimes thought of in the language of the 'scholarship boy, ' but with the growth of the student population also associated with the notion of a counterculture). The significance of an enlarged and dislocated intelligentsia is explored through the example of British Pop theory, the approach of which was to engage positively with popular culture, emphasising the value of mass-produced cultural forms which had the qualities of rawness and vitality on the one hand, and expendability on the other. British Pop theory employed pop to explore an alternative historical approach to working class culture but also suggested a different approach to upward-mobility. Contested geographies are explored through the example of New Left attitudes towards suburbia, megalopolis and the cultural geography of the North- South divide. 1968 is explored as the moment when the New Left engaged in a particular form of spatial politics: certain types of space were valued for their psychological characteristics, their sociological inaccessibility to the manipulative power of capitalism, and their capacity to liberate the subject from new forms of alienation. The spaces of New Left protest in 1968 are then compared to other examples of radical space based on radical architecture theory. The politics of the barricade are compared to the politics of indeterminacy.

Britain's second attempt to seek membership of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1967 has widely been regarded as inevitable. This thesis traces the development of Britain's policy towards the EEC from the accession of the Labour Government in 1964 to the failure of the application for membership in December 1967. Drawing primarily on official British records, it takes as its premise that policy decisions must be reconstructed as they appeared to participants at the time. It therefore places as central the roles and attitudes of key ministers and officials. It seeks to elucidate three main historical themes. First, by assessing the detailed progress of policy, it examines Harold Wilson's own ambiguous attitude towards European membership. Second, it considers how the British approached the Community, analysing Cabinet's acceptance of the policy as well as the conduct of Britain's diplomacy towards the members of the Six. Third, it places Britain's turn to Europe within the context of wider decisions about Britain's foreign and economic policies. It shows that Wilson's policy towards membership of the EEC developed only gradually and under duress, as he initially hoped to create a free trade area in Europe. Wilson did agree to study the implications of membership early in 1966, yet the decisive turning point was the July 1966 sterling crisis. It offers a new interpretation of Britain's approach to the Community, arguing that Wilson's attitude towards the tems of entry emerged only gradually. Britain's diplomacy with the Six foundered on Britain's economic weakness and the ability of General de Gaulle to manipulate his European partners. Although this was a period of considerable transformation in Britain's global orientation, British policy did not represent a decisive break with the past. Decisions were taken reluctantly and piecemeal, in response to economic crisis.