The vibrant, messy, passionate, and cacophonous world of the British Community Arts Movement is the centerpiece of this ambitious volume, which explores the role of the arts in Britain from the latter portion of the twentieth century to today. Seeking to “trace[ ] the development of community arts, primarily in the UK, from the late 1960s” (1), editors Alison Jeffers and Gerri Moriarty have created a thoroughly researched and thoughtfully organized book that, at times, vibrates with the fervor of discovery. Dividing the book into two parts, they first spotlight community arts, artists, and the social and political landscapes in which community artists worked, especially in the 1970s and early 1980s, featuring the voices of artists active at that time. The second half of the book is a reflection on the enduring influences of these earlier artists and the ways in which ideas and practices surrounding community arts have changed in twenty-first century Britain, as interpreted through multiple lenses, both academic and artistic.

Community arts in the United Kingdom, as described by the contributing authors, were complex and richly diverse. Encompassing all art forms, individual artists as well as companies worked within disparate and noncentral geographical locales. Political beliefs, ideologies, community-specific issues, and approaches to the work varied widely. In Chapter 1, a dense and comprehensive introduction, Jeffers deftly engages with—indeed celebrates—these differences, arguing that, despite an apparent lack of cohesion, there were many elements that tied these artists together as a movement. Jeffers articulates several influences that community artists shared, including an education in the arts that went beyond conservative traditional forms; the experimentation found in arts labs, such as Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop; and a generally leftist political orientation. A crucial common bond shared by many of these artists was the belief in the ability to effect social change through art. Finally, the active participation of community members in the making of the art is perhaps the most obvious yet critical shared feature of the community arts movement.

The key concepts of the democratization of culture versus cultural democracy, which are central to many of the discussions throughout the book, are cogently introduced in the first chapter. The democratization of culture involves taking culture to the people—providing access to the arts for a community. Cultural democracy is the creation of art by members of the community themselves—providing a space wherein the voices of community members can advocate for, draw attention to, and celebrate their community. As pointed out by several of the contributors, the emphasis on community-made art, or cultural democracy, led to a myriad of discoveries, misunderstandings, funding issues, and discussions regarding professional versus amateur art and the relative value of each, as well as inspired a new generation of community artists and activists to address social issues through collaboration, building relationships, and creating art.

The remainder of Part I, “The Community Arts Movement: Experimentation and Growth,” is dedicated to individual accounts of the community arts movement throughout the United Kingdom. Community artists Gerri Moriarty (England, Northern Ireland), Andrew Crummy (Scotland), and Nick Clements (Wales) share their personal stories of the communities in which they worked and the art they created. Read together, these narratives offer an intriguing view of the differing regions of Great Britain. As Moriarty states, “In every country and region in which the concept of community arts has taken root, its development has been significantly shaped by a specific political and cultural context” (116). Most strikingly, the political turmoil in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s is an example of how the immediacy of overshadowing conflict in a society acts as a catalyst for community arts involvement and directly impacts the time, place, and type of art created.

In Part II, “Cultural Democracy: Practices and Politics,” Alison Jeffers states that “[t]he authors in this part of the book are all concerned to regard and evaluate the past and the history of community arts work and to discuss possible legacies” (154). Here, Jeffers's introductory chapter strives to “bridge the gap between the 1980s and the present day” (133) and interrogates the development of the movement through two decades of social, political, economic, and cultural change. The “shifting patterns of work” (137) that moved artists out of geographical communities and into communities united by specific needs, such as mental health, disability, incarceration, and ethnicity, were significant factors impacting community arts. As Oliver Bennett shows in the following chapter, so too were the struggle to identify a theoretical base for community arts work amid economic challenges and the rise of cultural industries. The remaining chapters examine issues around training community artists (Janet Hetherington and Mark Webster), the development of practices in contemporary “socially engaged art” (155) (Sophie Hope), and the impact of technological advances and the digital revolution on ideas of community, social engagement, and art (Owen Kelly).

There are many ideas woven throughout the book that could easily be extracted and examined separately. The complex and constantly changing landscape of funding for the arts is one such topic. The role of the arts and the artist in society, the relationship of the arts and artists to community, and the perception of art through the lens of professionalism are others. At times, the scope of information is overwhelming as the editors attempt to paint an all-encompassing picture of the world in which these artists worked by articulating the dreams, realities, and impediments they faced, leading up to the impact of societal and cultural change on contemporary community arts. The wealth of material provided by more than twenty community artists interviewed by the editors is priceless, although occasionally the inclusion of multiple quotations from those artists at the beginning of paragraphs interrupts the narrative flow and occludes meaning. However, these difficulties are greatly overshadowed by the richness of the information, the enthusiasm that leaps off the page as the artists discuss their work, and the fearlessness and respect with which the editors tackle this behemoth of a topic.