Faber and Faber, 5 April 2018

Pb, 448 pp

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 charts - for the first time in depth - the history, impact and legacy of a movement that sparked a revolution and shaped pop culture as we have come to know it.

Roots, Radicals and Rockers is full of fascinating digressions but it also traces the grand sweep of an unfurling counterculture, from its politics to its music. With an archivist's sense of mission, a musician's knowledge and a fan's joy, Bragg performs a real national service: illuminating a moment all too easily lost. - Sunday Times