Stanley Cohen

Blocking out, turning a blind eye, shutting off, not wanting to know, wearing blinkers, seeing what we want to see... these are all expressions of 'denial'. Alcoholics who refuse to recognise their condition, people who brush aside suspicions of their partner's infidelity, the wife who doesn't notice that her husband is abusing their daughter - are supposedly 'in denial'. Governments...

'Richly documented and convincingly presented' – New Society Mods and Rockers, skinheads, video nasties, designer drugs, bogus asylum seekers, and hoodies. Every era has its own moral panics. It was Stanley Cohen’s classic account, first published in the early 1970s and regularly revised, that brought the term ‘moral panic’ into widespread discussion. It is an outstanding investigation of the way...