To ride the storm : the 1980 Bristol ' Riot ' and the state
- London Heinemann Educational 1983
- 221p.
The 'riot' in Bristol in 1980 presented the nation, and particularly the state, with a major crisis: a crisis of public order, of race relations, of the inner city.
This is a study of those events and their aftermath. It analyses the responses of the legal system, the role of the media and the reactions of various government agencies, and sets the scene by a consideration of the treatment of black people in Britain.
The authors demonstrate that collective racial violence is not a recent phenomenon. Rather it has been an integral part of the history of race and black settlement in Britain throughout the present century.
The lessons drawn from Bristol should be read by everyone concerned with ethnic relations and the inner city's problems. It also has much to offer those concerned with the media, and law and order.