Category Archives: Uncategorized

Gen Z Wasn’t Born Fragile. We Made Them This Way

An in-depth interview on El Podcast, 10 November.

What’s up with Gen Z?

I enjoyed speaking at the Together conference on 7 November, with a terrific panel of young thinkers: Ada Akpala, Maeve Halligan, Sebastian Moore and Connie Shaw.     

The death of decency

My talk for the keynote session ‘Is the Social Contract Broken?’, at the Battle of Ideas festival, 19 October 2026.

‘Gen Z Rules!’ Understanding the riots sweeping Europe

Joanna Williams reviews Growing Up in the Culture Wars: Identity and Generational Conflict. Williams writes: ‘The authors are careful not to suggest that young people today have it harder than those in the past. Clearly, having to stay at home during the Covid pandemic was not more dangerous than fighting on the front line in […]

New book explores how culture wars are shaping a generation

Press release by Canterbury Christ Church University, 23 October.

How do we raise children when everything is politicised?

During a special live recording of Take Me Home at this year’s Battle of Ideas Festival, Hilary and Sebastian are joined by Jennie Bristow and Ellie Lee, authors of Growing Up in the Culture Wars. They explore fraying generational bonds and the factors such as work, sex and politics that shape young people’s transition into […]

Generation Expert: Gen Z Have Been Conditioned to Give Up!

An in-depth interview with Elliot Bewick on the Next Generation podcast, about Growing Up in the Culture Wars.    

Latest book: Growing Up in the Culture Wars

Growing Up in the Culture Wars: Identity and Generational Conflict, co-authored with Ellie Lee, was published by Polity in October 2026. You’ll find reviews of the book and other related content on this site.

Britain’s heatwave response was straight from the Covid playbook

Hundreds of school closures across England and Wales, train companies advising people not to travel, and businesses encouraging staff to work from home. Remind you of anything? It’s the Covid playbook, which is rapidly becoming the ‘new normal’ for how our supposedly advanced society responds to an unusual and difficult event. And given that in seasonal […]

‘This is home’

The victory of Clarkson’s Hawkstone Farmers’ Choir in the Britain’s Got Talent final reflects the spirit of contemporary populism. Substack @generationtalk, 1 June 2026.