Matthew Worley is Professor of modern history at the University of Reading, UK. His more recent work has concentrated on the relationship between youth culture and politics in Britain, primarily in the 1970s and 1980s. He is the author of No Future: Punk Politics and British Youth Culture, 1976-1984 (2017) and co-editor of Tomorrow Belongs to Us: The British Far Right since 1967 (2017) among others.

His main areas of interest lay in twentieth-century British culture and politics. My early research was concentrated on the interwar years, with a particular interest in the British labour movement. I have also written on communism in Britain and in Europe, while my research into Sir Oswald Mosley’s New Party led me to work on the far right of the British political spectrum.

He has successfully supervised a number of PhD students and am always keen to do so. I would welcome students interested in questions of youth and music culture, British twentieth-century politics, communism, socialism and fascism. My own focus tends to be British, but PhDs related to European, US and wider world manifestations of these subjects would be of great interest. He is the co-founder and editor of Twentieth Century Communism, and his current research is directed towards the link between politics and youth culture in post-45 Britain. This has led to the publication of No Future: Politics, Punk and Society, 1976-84 (CUP, 2017), alongside various articles, chapters and edited collections. He is the co-founder of the Subcultures Network.

Research interests

Punk, british culture, politics, labour movement.

Publications

Worley, M. (2022). Whip in my valise: British punk and the Marquis de Sade, c. 1975–85. Contemporary British History. ISSN 1743-7997 (In Press).

Smith, E. and Worley, M. (eds.) (2021). The British left and Ireland in the twentieth century. London: Routledge.

Henry, W. and Worley, M. (eds.) (2021). Narratives from Beyond the UK Reggae Bassline: The System is Sound. London: Palgrave Macmillan, Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music.

Worley, M. (2020) ‘If I had more time it could be better, but the new wave’s about spontaneity, right?’: finding meaning in Britain’s early punk fanzines (1976–77). Punk and Post-Punk , 9 (2). pp. 223-245.

Puccini, J. Smith, E. , Worley, M. (eds.) (2018). The Far Left in Australia since 1945. London: Routledge.

Copsey, N. & Worley, M. (eds.) (2018). Tomorrow belongs to us: the British far right since 1967. London: Routledge.