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This book is about the new politics of leisure and pleasure - the values, practices, struggles and contradictions that now characterize the social worlds of rambling, drinking, tourism, sex, watching TV, gambling, using the internet, reading, comedy, sport, popular music and censorship.

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This book explores the new politics of leisure and pleasure in relation to a range of popular activities. Current generations in Western societies are essentially recipients of the changes that the Sixties fabled decade of sex, drugs and rock n´ roll - left behind. In their leisure lives whether drinking, reading, surfing the net, taking drugs, going to a comedy gig, watching TV, taking a holiday, downloading music, supporting a football club, having a bet, having sex or simply roaming the countryside people seem to enjoy unprecedented freedoms. But what are these freedoms? How are they exercised? And to what extent have traditional controls been relinquished?

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Introduction: Unforbidden Fruit: From Leisure to Pleasure; P.Bramham & S.Wagg Choosing Leisure: Social Theory, Class and Generations; P.Bramham Double Measures: The Moral Regulation of Alcohol Consumption, Past and Present; C.Critcher Outdoor Recreation and the Environment; N.Ravenscroft & P.Gilchrist Television, Deregulation and the Reshaping of Leisure; P.Drake & R.Haynes Sex and the Citizens: Erotic Play and the New Leisure Culture; F.Attwood Rituals of Intoxication: Young People, Drugs, Risk and Leisure; S.Blackman States, Markets and New Media: the Contemporary Politics of Gambling; J.West & T.Austrin Towards Web 3.0: Mashing Up Work and Leisure; A.Miah Tourist Bodies, Transformation and Sensuality; A.Pritchard & N.Morgan ´They Can´t Stop Us Laughing´: Politics, Leisure and the Comedy Business; S.Wagg Noughties Reading; N.Matthews Sport and Lifestyle; J.Horne Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Music and Leisure in an Era of X Factor and Digital Pirates; B.Lashua Doublethink: The Confused and Contradictory Politics of Television Censorship in Britain; J.Petley Afterword: Closing Reflections on the New Politics of Leisure and Pleasure; P.Bramham & S.Wagg

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