Moving beyond a survey approach, this collection explores British fiction's place among the cultural shifts and headline events of four distinctive decades. From the collapse of communism, through the rise of Thatcher to the shifts in global power, each volume evaluates the impact of social, cultural and political history on the fiction of the respective period. Breaking British fiction into its four constituent decades, the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s and the 2000s and using social, cultural and political contexts to understand its chronology means changing literary themes are properly accounted for and traditional readings opened up. Alongside the national reception, the series looks closely at how British fiction has been received internationally. Approaching the subject from the perspective of its disciplinary formation, The Decades Series is a crucial reference point for the progressive development of contemporary British fiction, not only a literary and cultural phenomenon, but as an academic field.

Book I: The 1970s
Series Editors' Preface
Acknowledgements
Contributors
Introduction: Britain in the 1970s - Controversies and Cultures (Nick Hubble, John McLeod and Philip Tew)
1 Selective Traditions: Refreshing the Literary History of the Seventies (Mark P. Williams)
2 The Ordinariness of the Extraordinary Break-Up of Britain (Nick Hubble)
3 1970s Feminist Fiction (Sonya Andermahr)
4 Black British Culture and Fiction in the 1970s (John McLeod)
5 'This Time It's Personal': Reliving and Rewriting History in 1970s Fiction (Sam Goodman)
6 Turbulent Times: Conflicts, Ideology and the Experimental British Novel, 1969-1979 (Philip Tew)
7 Fiction, Representation and the Contemporary British Novel: A Story of the American Reception of British Novels of the 1970s (Doryjane Birrer)
8 Melancholy Interest: J. G. Farrell's Troubles and the Politics of Perspective
Timeline of Works
Timeline of National Events
Timeline of International Events
Biographies of Writers
Index
Book II: The 1980s
Series Editors' Preface
Introduction (Philip Tew, Leigh Wilson and Joe Brooker)
Contributors
1. Bombs, Kidnappings and Yuppies: The Literary History of the Decade (Emily Horton)
2. Thatcherism and Literature (Joseph Brooker)
3. The Awakening of Caledonias? Scottish Literature in the 1980s (Monica Germanà)
4. Black British Women's Fiction in the 1980s (Susan Alice Fischer)
5. From the Heritage Act to Radical Historiography: History in the 1980s (Alex Murray)
6. Generic Discontinuities and Variations in Fiction of the 1980s (Frederick M. Holmes)
7. British Novels of 1980s: International Contexts (Jung Su)
Timeline
Biographies of Writers
Bibliography
Index
Book III: The 1990s
Series Editors' Preface
Introduction (Nick Hubble, Philip Tew and Leigh Wilson)
1. Literary History of the Decade (Martyn Colebrook)
2. Re-Writing National Identities in 1990s British Fiction (Nick Bentley)
3. The Misery Index: Memoir Boom and Bust in the 1990s (Claire Lynch)
4. Postcolonial and Marginal Voices (Sara Upstone)
5. Caught between the Short and Long Twentieth Centuries: Temporal Displacement in the Historical Fiction of the 1990s (Nick Hubble)
6. The Subversive Revolution: British Experimental Fiction of the 1990s (Katy Shaw)
7. International Contexts I: Possessed by the Other: The Reception of British Neo-Victorian Fiction in America in the 1990s (Lynn Wells)
8. International Contexts II (Anja Müller-Wood)
Timeline
Biographies of Writers
Bibliography
Index
Book IV: The 2000s
Series Editors' Preface
Introduction (Nick Bentley, Nick Hubble and Leigh Wilson)
1. Bringing Up the Nation: A British Literary History of the Noughties (Paul McGarry)
2. Subcultural Fictions: The Representation of Youth Subcultures in 21st-Century British Fiction (Nick Bentley)
3. Fictions of the Brain in the 2000s (Laura Salisbury)
4. Saving Britain: "Ethnic" Writing in the 2000s (Lucienne Loh)
5. The Novel as Reference (Leigh Wilson)
6. The 2000s: Generic Discontinuities & Variations (David James)
7. International Contexts I (Tracey K Parker)
8. International Contexts II: From Multicultural Enthusiasm to the 'Failure of Multiculturalism': British Multi-Ethnic Fiction in an International Frame (Ulrike Tancke)
Timeline
Biographies of Writers
Bibliography
Index

Leigh Wilson is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Westminster, UK.
Nick Hubble is Head of English Literature at Brunel University, UK.
Philip Tew is Professor of English (Post-1900 Literature) at Brunel University, UK, Director of Brunel's Centre for Contemporary Writing and Director of the UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies.