Building Jerusalem: Art, Industry and the British Millennium [Paperback]

A lively and provocative account of the arts in Britain, Building Jerusalem suggests that even after fifty years of state planning of Britain's leisure industries the country is nevertheless approaching the millennium in a state of cultural confusion. Drawing on a wealth of historical material from Scotland, Wales, and English provincial towns, as well as the more familiar London story, Pick and Anderton contend that the original meaning of cultural language has been distorted by the fashionable phrase-making of modern government agencies, and by the inaccurate and misleading view of cultural history that is constantly presented to the public.

The authors unfold fascinating stories of Britain's cultural past, before state support of the arts. They vividly relate the great changes wrought by the industrial revolution and by the development of the twentieth century media and describe the long history of Church and Royal support for the arts, as well as the long periods when all of the arts

Introduction: The Shock of the Old The Virgin Queen The Royal Enclosures Industriousness and the Lottery The Glory of Commercial Art Industrial Revolution The Great Exhibition Provision for the People The Horrors of Tourism Mass, Messages and the Media Nationalisation of the Arts The Mirage of the Millennium Shadows and Illusion Appendix: Comparison of Cultural Organisations and Workers in Cardiff, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield in 1850, 1900 and 1950US? 1999 OPA (Overseas Publishers Association) N.V. Published by license under the Harwood Academic Publishers imprint, part of The Gordon and Breach Publishing Group.