Welsh Journals

demonstrates forcibly the main elements of class, economic and regional differences.and their subtle shifts over the last hundred years or so'. These are major claims; he substantiates them with a dissection of 'popular arcadianism' that encounters 'the idea of real England', socially graded riverbanks, proletarian competitiveness and the commercial hype of the 'new technology'. His essays, though rich in allusion, are the least footnoted and the most informative. There are enough hints in the volume as a whole (on the vital role of cheap rail travel, on urban and male camaraderie, on the way popular culture can shape politics and society, rather than the other way round) to suggest how the social history of sports might now develop. As with film history, where synoptic description can all too readily be substituted for critical understanding of the role of concepts and images in a wider culture, it must insist on the seriousness, the complexity and the struggle for freedom that is rooted in all that which is truly popular. DAI SMITH Cardiff ETHOLIAD CYFFREDINOL 1987 YNG NGHYMRU/THE 1987 GENERAL ELECTION IN WALES, with an introduction by Denis Balsom. Yr Archif Wleidyddol Gymraeg/Welsh Political Archive, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1988. £ 3.00. This book is one of the first fruits of the excellent Welsh Political Archive established in 1983 by the National Library of Wales. It comprises a short introduction (a dozen pages in each language) and statistics of election results, including tables and graphs analysing the Welsh results and the 1983 and 1987 polls for each constituency in Wales. There are two attractive colour maps in the centrefold, printed 'in-house' (by Japanese technology of course!). In his perceptive introductory essay, Dr. Balsom asks whether Wales is now effectively homogenized and integrated into British political culture. The answer remains interestingly unclear. There is more than one Wales and more than one England too. In the north-south divide where does Wales fit? Dr. Balsom shows how economic change has transformed Wales and undermined the traditional sources of Labour support. The recent success of the Conservatives in Wales can be explained by such economic change in Wales and political developments in Britain. In the last two decades Britain has stumbled towards and away from multi-party Politics. In Wales the impact of Plaid Cymru and the Alliance has been to exaggerate and intensify this fragmentation of the old two-party system, which in any case never dominated Wales. Politics remains exciting and excitable. Brecon and Radnor recorded the highest turn-out and the lowest majority; South Glamorgan had the highest increase in tum-out. But still old one-party Wales lives on in the Rhondda, which has the highest majority in Britain and a few other similar constituencies. The book tells you which these are. Half of the seats in Wales now have majorities of less