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From International Socialism, No.14, Autumn 1963, p.35.
Thanks to Ted Crawford & the late Will Fancy.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The Cutteslowe Walls: A Study in Social Class
Peter Collison
Faber & Faber, 25s.
British sociologists have still, it seems, to learn that impeccable research procedures do not of themselves make for good sociology. There are honourable exceptions, but Dr Collison is not one of them. His subject, the history of a notorious set of walls erected in the thirties to seal off a private housing estate in Oxford from a neighbouring Council estate, could have been promising. The author recounts the various stages of the dispute between the Council and Saxton (builder of the private estate and the walls) and gives details of two unilluminating but beautifully constructed surveys he carried out before and after the eventual demolition of the walls in 1959. The blurb claims that the book ‘illustrates some of the profound changes that have occurred in class relationships in the last twenty-five years,’ but this promising theme is not at all explored. Sociology is not just a matter of telling stories, but supposes a meaningful theoretical framework; and it is this that The Cutteslowe Walls lacks. As a study of class relations in an urban community it is a failure; but I recommend it as a lightweight piece of bedside reading, amusing in places, and with some unaccountable prejudices in favour of private building contractors.
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Last updated on 24 March 2010