Owen Jones
Owen Jones has worked in the British Parliament as a trade union lobbyist and parliamentary researcher. He is writing a PhD on the history of blue-collar America and the rise of the New Right. He lives in London.
Upcoming Events
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March 03, 2012
Mineral Hospital, Bath
Owen Jones at Bath Litfest
The author of Chavs in conversation with Guy Standing -
March 17, 2012
Rich Mix
The Festival of Dangerous Ideas
Exploring dangerous ideas with Paul Mason, Owen Hatherley, Lindsey German, and more
Blog
Owen Jones on BBC Question Time
Appearing on BBC Question Time last night, Owen Jones attacked the government's Health Reform Bill, stating that the "Tories have absolutely no mandate for what they're doing to our NHS", as well as slamming New Labour for "laying the foundations" for the privatisation of the health service.
Verso titles selected as Books of the Year 2011 across UK broadsheets and periodicals
As the year draws to a close, newspapers have been asking the great and the good which books have most impressed them in 2011. Here we have collected the Verso books that were featured.
In the New Statesman, Guardian and Observer Books of the Year round ups, Hari Kunzru selected two Verso books as standing out from other books published this year. He explained the appeal of the titles to the New Statesman:
Hari Kunzru
With the Occupy movement gaining ground throughout the world, McKenzie Wark's smart overview of the situationist movement, The Beach Beneath the Street: the Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International, feels particularly timely. For years, Laura Oldfield Ford, who is very influenced by situationism, has produced a fanzine, based on her derives around London, with words and beautiful, confrontational line drawings of the city's forgotten people and neglected places. Now, Savage Messiah has been collected in book form. It is a wake-up call to anyone who can only see modern cities through the lens of gentrification.
In the Guardian feature on the Best Books of 2011, a number of Verso titles were selected by those asked.
Eric Hobsbawm
Among the 2011 books that came my way I particularly welcomed Owen Jones's Chavs, a passionate and well-documented denunciation of the upper-class contempt for the proles that has recently become so visible in the British class system.
John Lanchester
I loved two very different books of criticism...[one was] Owen Hatherley's furiously pro-Modernist A Guide to the New Ruins of Britain
Pankaj Mishra
Liberalism: A Counter-History by Domenico Losurdo stimulatingly uncovers the contradictions of an ideology that is much too self-righteously invoked.
Ahdaf Soueif
I'm reading Chris Harman's A People's History of the World. It's really helpful to zoom out from time to time when you're living massive events at very close quarters.
Chavs included on top 10 list in the New York Times
Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class was chosen as one of the ten “best nonfiction books of 2011” by Dwight Garner in the New York Times
"The noun chav, in Britain, essentially means 'ugly prole': loutish, tacky, probably drunken and possibly violent. Think Snooki with a cockney accent. Mr. Jones’s book is a cleareyed examination of the British class system, and it poses this brutal question: 'How has hatred of working-class people become so socially acceptable?' His timely answers combine wit, left-wing politics and outrage."
Visit the New York Times to read the article in full.
The book was also included on Matthew Higgs’ “Best of 2011” list in Artforum (December 2011, print version)
"Seen in the light of the riots and the worldwide Occupy protests, his lucid analysis of a divided society appears uncannily prescient."
Books
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Chavs
Bestselling investigation into the myth and reality of working-class life in contemporary Britain
Discussions
Discussions occur on book pages throughout the site. The most recent discussions about the works of Owen Jones are listed below.
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Owen Jones LIVE on Chavs: The Demonization of the White Working Class
I will be answering questions about Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class on the discussion board on Tuesday 28 June, from 12 noon (BST). Post your questions here in advance, and please join us on the day.From my latest blog post:“In his review of my book, Michael Collins suggests that the ‘chav’ word is somehow outmoded. I strongly disagree. Its usage remains prevalent: whether in daily conversations or internet forums. But above all the use of ‘chav’ caricatures—whether the actual word ‘chav’ is invoked or not-is still rampant. The idea that we're all middle class, apart from a feckless, work-shy rump living on ‘sink estates’ is embraced by politicians and journalists alike. The reality of Britain's working-class majority remains absent from our TV screens, newspapers and from our politicians’ speeches.”