Under Thatcher's leadership the Conservative government cut universities' budgetary allotment in an attempt to redistribute funding to areas seen as more deserving or needy, namely to the technical colleges which would prepare skilled workers to maintain a workforce that would produce national wealth and stabilise the economy. To create a context for the effect this treatment of education had upon the academic fiction of the era, it is necessary to examine the economics of education leading up to the Thatcher era. The most significant event in this regard, prior to the assumption of power by the Thatcher government, was the Higher Education Report, commonly known as the Robbins Report.

The Robbins Report, commissioned by Conservative Prime Minister Harold MacMillan and presented in complete form in October 1963, became the educational equivalent of the Ten Commandments. Under the guidance of Lord Robbins between 1961-63, the thirteen persons who made up the Committee on Higher Education set out to:

review the pattern of full-time higher education in Great Britain and in the light of national needs and resources to advise Her Majesty's Government on what principles its long-term development should be based. In particular, to advise, in the light of these principles, whether there should be any changes in that pattern, whether any new types of institution are desirable and whether any modifications should be made in the present arrangements for planning and co-ordinating the development of the various types of institution. (Treasury minute dated 8th February 1961; quoted Robbins Report, 1)

The state of tertiary education was duly researched, contrasted with past conditions, and a set of guidelines was drawn up for the future path higher education would (and should) take. One of the first statements made in the report recognizes the connection between education and economic productivity:

[T]he growing realisation of this country's economic dependence upon the education of its population has led to much questioning of the adequacy of present arrangements. Unless higher education is speedily reformed, it is argued, there is little hope of this densely populated island maintaining an adequate position in the fiercely competitive world of the future. (Robbins Report, 5)

Between 1938 and 1962, the percentage of children aged seventeen in school had increased from four percent to fifteen percent. The report links this growth to "the steady rise in national prosperity" (12), and predicts that the requirements for tertiary education - be it university, technical college or otherwise - would increase from 216 000 places in 1962/3 to 392 000 places in 1973/4 and then to 558 000 places by 1980/1 (Robbins Report, 160-1). Expecting the number of tertiary education students to more than double in twenty years, the government implemented educational reform accordingly. New colleges and universities were built; the existing ones were expanded; faculty were hired, support staff were brought in, and for a while at least education and the educational industry in Great Britain underwent a swift renaissance following the predictions of the Robbins Report.

Why devote this effort and money to overhauling the higher educational system, apart from better educating men and women to function within a society characterized by increasingly complex sciences and technologies? The second chapter of the report contains an acknowledgment of the question of "what purposes, what general social ends should be served by higher education?" (Robbins Report, 6). The four Aims of Higher Education are set out as follows:

(25)We begin with instruction in skills suitable to play a part in the general division of labour. We put this first, not because we regard it as the most important, but because we think that it is sometimes ignored or undervalued. […] And it must be recognised that in our own times, progress - and particularly the maintenance of a competitive position - depends to a much greater extent than ever before on skills demanding special training. A good general education, valuable though it may be, is frequently less than we need to solve many of our most pressing problems.

(26)But, secondly, while emphasising that there is no betrayal of values when institutions of higher education teach what will be of some practical use, we must postulate that what is taught should be taught in such a way as to promote the general powers of the mind. The aim should be not to produce specialists but rather cultivated men and women….

(27)Thirdly, we must name the advancement of learning…. [T]he search for truth is an essential function of institutions of higher education and the process of education is itself most vital when it partakes of the nature of discovery…. [T]he world, not higher education alone, will suffer if [institutions of higher learning] ever cease to regard [the advancement of knowledge] as one of their main functions.

(28)Finally there is a function that is more difficult to describe concisely, but that is none the less fundamental: the transmission of a common culture and common standards of citizenship….. [W]e believe that it is a proper function of higher education… to provide in partnership with the family that background of culture and social habit upon which a healthy society depends….. (Robbins Report, 6-7)

These aims and ideals signify a new direction in thought about the academy. A concern for keeping in touch with the needs of the real world is expressed. The report appears to recognise the split between intellectual study and the acquisition of technical skills and proposes the different approaches necessary to develop each of them. By suggesting that labour skills have been undervalued, the report signals the beginning of a slow reversal of the status of each type of education. This recognition, while valid and admirable in its efforts at establishing institutional equality, marks the beginning of what will become the Thatcherist approval of technological colleges and devaluation of liberal studies. The very mention of the fact that "[a] good general education … is frequently less than we need to solve many of our most pressing problems" indicates the awareness of a need for focus in an increasingly specialized world of labour, as does the use of the phrase "progress… depends… on skills demanding special training". It is also significant that this requirement comes first on the list, followed by the "search for truth" and "the transmission of a common culture", despite the report's claims that it does not list article 25 first out of importance, but out of concern. This anxiety is what culminates in the position of the academy in the 1980s, and in the views of the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher.

Having tackled the thorny problem of the purpose of tertiary education, the report later examines the equally difficult problem of the distribution of places by faculty. Throughout the report, the committee connects the need for better training and scientific advancement with a drive to increase economic productivity. While they argue for a significant percentage of the new places in technological and scientific areas to answer needs in the workplace, the report's authors make a point of defending the arts:

[W]e envisage some further increase beyond 51 per cent. in the proportion of students taking science and technology. As Chapter X has indicated, within this total there is a need for the growth of technology (interpreted in a broad sense) relative to science. … None of this implies a reduction after 1966/7 in the proportion of students taking arts subject. This we should view with concern, for a growing proportion of students in this category have been taking social studies and we expect this trend to continue; and any decline or weakening in the study of the humanities would impoverish the intellectual and spiritual life of the country. (Robbins Report, 165)

It is evident that the Robbins committee considered the academic pursuit of the arts necessary to the maintenance of a certain level of culture. Unfortunately, that culture is not defined except as one of the important elements transmitted by higher education "upon which a healthy society depends". While culture is mentioned in the same phrase as "common standards of citizenship" in the list of aims and ideals, it is not made clear what constitutes culture, and this is the area where the diverging paths of intellectual study and technological skill acquisition disagree. In Thatcher's Conservative regime culture appears synonymous with economic stability and a powerful economic presence within the world, the British standard of living, as it were. For the academy, culture involves a knowledge of the humanities and literature, the history of the nation in sociological terms as well as dates and events; a sense of self and nation and the tradition whence they have come. Economic stability has eclipsed culture; the government, seeing the necessity of reestablishing economic power, has chosen to endorse a new cultural focus. The humanities, bereft of support, were left to struggle in their goals to recover wisdom and truth from the past, mining the true culture in an attempt to continue communicating it to those who enroll in higher education for pure intellectual study.

What resulted from the educational horn of plenty the Robbins Report created in the field of tertiary education was not the bright future that the committee had envisioned. As time went on it became evident that certain of the predictions the committee had made did not come to pass. For example, it was assumed that as inflation and the cost of living increased, so would all wages and salaries, enabling enrollment to be affordable and professors to maintain pay scales equivalent to other professionals. Huge sums to improve the system were justified by the argument that they were an investment in the future of Great Britain and one that could not help but pay off, in productivity if not in pounds sterling. Ultimately, when the anticipated numbers of students failed to materialize, falling well short of the predicted 558 000 places, the system which had grown so rapidly began to collapse in upon itself. By the time the Thatcher Conservative Party ordered a stern overhaul of the educational system in 1986-8, it was considered "ruinously expensive" (Letwin, 264) and action was taken accordingly.

The Thatcher attitude towards tertiary education was not viewed as a positive one by the humanities. The actual results of the reforms as compared to the glowing ideals set forth in the Robbins Report's Aims of Higher Education were disappointing at the very least. Even more so than the Robbins committee, the Thatcher government stressed the necessity of training productive individuals to return Britain to its previously prestigious economic position. With an emphasis on training a workforce and teaching its future members "whatever is needed to improve the efficiency of production" (Letwin, 252), the Thatcher government's mandate left no room for the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake. Where once the governments of the Robbins era and immediately afterwards had been seen as benevolent and endorsing the academic's quest for truth in the humanities, now the government was seen as an antagonist, cutting through the lavish educational grants ruthlessly. A fear of the loss of a way of life and cultural standard began to grow in academic halls; or, as the Robbins Report phrased its warning twenty years before, the fear that "the world, not higher education alone, will suffer if [institutions of higher learning] ever cease to regard [the advancement of knowledge] as one of their main functions." A fear for the future of education merged with the anxiety in the academy concerning the relevance of the study of literature and arts in a modern world bent on increasing economic efficiency by increasing productivity. The governmental report Higher Education Meeting the Challenge stated that "[h]igher education has a crucial role in helping the nation to meet the economic challenges of the final decade of this century and beyond" (Letwin, 266). No mention is made of an equivalent contribution to cultural life. Although the Robbins Report stated as one of its ideals that higher education should not "produce specialists but rather cultivated men and women", by leaving the cultural aspect undefined it eclipsed this concern with technical considerations and thus the warning was forgotten or disregarded. The implicit criticism of the arts inherent in the Thatcher government's investment in technological training was felt keenly, prompting a wave of protest. Professor Sir Geoffrey Elton, writing to the Times on 21 August 1986, lamented that "If the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake were to disappear from the universities they would cease to be universities. Nor do I accept that intellectuals think civilized values incompatible with the creation of material wealth" (quoted in Letwin, 251).

Curiously, the Thatcher approach and that of the Robbins Report appear to agree, at least superficially, regarding the increased need for technological training; both are also concerned with maintaining a certain level of civilized culture via the transmission of values through education. Beyond this superficial resemblance, however, lies a crucial difference in execution of those ideals. The Robbins Report created new schools and new programs to provide both the humanities and the sciences room to expand. The Thatcher government, no longer able to maintain the funding for what was perceived as unproductive, wasted space, cut the humanities' funding to force educational refocusing. This, paired with the Thatcher government's emphasis on economic and industrial puissance, naturally resulted in a tacit endorsement of the technical colleges rather than the Oxbridge liberal education institutions whose graduates had no guaranteed employment which contributed to the wealth of the nation in any recognizable way. The latter institutions, then, cost the government valuable money to run, with no concrete payback upon their students' completion of the program of study. Again, in a nation where economic viability was the new standard of culture, knowledge for knowledge's sake - a pursuit with no apparent application in the real world - is thus seen as a waste of time, and a waste of money.

In her memoir The Downing Street Years (1993), Margaret Thatcher expresses her concern over the fact that "increases in public spending had not by and large led to higher standards" in education (590). While decentralising certain aspects of the educational system, such as enrolment and local management of schools, the Conservative government was at the same time centralising the most crucial aspect of schooling, erecting a national curriculum, in an attempt to ensure some common level of basic skills in graduating students. They revised the university system significantly. In Thatcher's own words, they did as follows:

… By exerting financial pressure we had increased administrative efficiency…. Universities were developing closer links with business and becoming more entrepreneurial. Student loans… had also been introduced: these would make students more discriminating about the courses they chose….. Limits based on the security of tenure enjoyed by university staff also encouraged dons to pay closer attention to satisfy the teaching requirements made of them. All this encountered strong political opposition from within the universities. Some of it was predictable. But undoubtedly other critics were genuinely concerned about the future autonomy and academic integrity of universities.

I had to concede that these critics had a stronger case than I would have liked….. (598-9)

Even the Prime Minister became aware of how ruthless the cuts were growing, and of how threatened the academic way of life was becoming. (It may be worth noting here that Thatcher took a degree in Chemistry at Oxford before moving on to becoming a barrister, and also served as Edward Heath's Education Minister from 1970-74.) Obviously, it was never the government's intention to phase out higher education in the arts and humanities; what Thatcher calls "academic integrity" was not what the cuts were attempting to affect. Budget cuts and financial pressure, however, can go too far, and in retrospect the Prime Minister would see that "increasing administrative efficiency" had affected the quality of education (and the communication of culture?). Education, for the Thatcher government, had been reduced to a business affair. Students are required to make course choices not based on their interests or their skills but based on what they can afford, which in turn leads to the necessity of choosing courses to aid in job training. What emerges from a reading of the Thatcher drive for vocational training is an implicit disregard for the academic pursuit of the arts. In the grand scheme of getting Britain back on the economic track, the arts (and especially the arts in academia) then hold no place of importance. Ultimately, the philosophical conservative values of maintaining a link to the past and upholding traditional establishments are classified as not economically practical in a most un-conservative conclusion.

It may be argued that one of the reasons the Thatcher government became so dismissive of universities and pure learning is because it held that the values necessary for a civilized cultural community were not being transmitted properly in these establishments. Article 28 of the Robbins Report, dealing with the furthering of culture and healthy civilisation, as well as article 26, concerning the production of "cultivated men and women" via a mode of teaching instilled with those nebulous proper values "difficult to describe" (7), appeared to the Conservatives to have been misinterpreted or even deliberately discarded. The generosity engendered by the Robbins Report produced nowhere near the expected returns economically, and in fact created an academic environment that was unmanageable. With the increasingly liberal attitude of young people during the 1960s and early 1970s, universities became places where, according to David Lodge (a university professor from 1960 through 1987):

[c]ut off from normal social intercourse with the adult world, relieved of inhibition […], the students were apt to run wild, indulging in promiscuous behaviour and experimenting with drugs, or else they turned melancholy mad. Robyn's generation, coming up to university in the early 1970s, immediately after the heroic period of student politics, were oppressed by a sense of belatedness. There were no significant rights left to demand, no taboos left to break. (Nice Work, 43)

The Thatcher emphasis on active values (what Shirley Letwin calls "the vigorous virtues" of wholesome morals such as self-sufficiency, energy, adventure, independence, loyalty [33]) ensured that any environment that endorsed a purely intellectual concept, comprehensive programs and other liberal educational pursuits would be met coolly. Understandably, academics began to become more concerned, and this concern is reflected in the academic fiction of the era. Throughout the boom of the Robbins era and the subsequent failure of expectations, academic fiction served as a mirror in which academia studied its fears and as a forum for the examination of such philosophical questions as "who are we?" and "why are we here?". It is significant to note that as the academic situation in Great Britain has grown more and more chaotic, the genre of academic fiction has grown more and more popular.

While fiction set within an academic environment had existed previously, academic fiction as a genre only truly came into its own after World War II, concurrent with and subsequent to the burst of educational growth inspired by the Robbins Report. Prior to this, various novels had their action set in an academic environment, but the setting is not the stimulus for action. With Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim (1954) this begins to change, and a vague sense of the importance of the specifically academic milieu begins to insinuate itself into the form. Generally recognized as the father of the modern academic novel, Lucky Jim is a comedy of British manners and young love. The academic aspect of this novel is present but minimal: the protagonist Jim Dixon is nearing the end of his appointment, and, knowing that he has little to recommend him for a permanent job (and much to deny it), he attaches himself to the senior professor Welch in hopes of securing a permanent job. There are no references to the actual academic life or teaching other than those made in passing. The characterization of Welch is that of a bumbling man unaware of the life going on around him, happily self-absorbed. Dixon, on the other hand, is sharply aware of the danger he runs of not being offered a permanent staff position, and much of the action revolves around his attempts to ingratiate himself in order to improve his chances of achieving that position. Dixon is the first protagonist of the academic novel to be intensely aware of the economics at work within the academic life. The dichotomy between the older professional, secure in his tenure and cheerfully oblivious, and the younger professional, desperate to actively confirm his job and scholarly status, is a main source of the humour of the novel. Jim agrees to several tasks or entertainments which directly conflict with previous plans or personal interest to stay in Welch's good graces. Throughout the novel the reader is aware that Jim has no true love for the academic life.

What begins as a mild comic element in Amis's Lucky Jim soon grows to be a significant identifying trait as the academic novel develops as a form. What Lodge describes as "the absent-mindedness, vanity, eccentricity, and practical incompetence that academic institutions seem to tolerate and even to encourage in their senior staff (or at least did before the buzz-word `Management' began to echo through the groves of academe in the 1980s)" (Amis, viii) is further developed as the character of the oblivious professor becomes more withdrawn and out of touch with life. It becomes apparent that this professor character, far from being the admirable figure of knowledgeable authority students expect him to be, is instead a hidebound and limited mind incapable of drawing parallels between his subject and the real world outside the university walls. Angela Hague attributes part of this change to the growing perception that academia's focus is more on scholarship and the quest for knowledge than the actual communication of knowledge to students: "abstractions and theoretical constructs are represented as distorting filters which cause the academic to lose a clear vision of reality and which frequently allow him to avoid making decisions and taking action" (178). This ivory tower syndrome portrayed in academic fiction is also examined by David Bevan, who suggests that over-specialization by academics leads to "stunted personal growth, be it because of innate inadequacy or excessive specialization" (104). The concept of the academic taking refuge in the university environment from the outside world to indulge personal interests to the exclusion of teaching is one that can be seen often in the development of the form. At times, it becomes apparent that professors believe that "students are interfering with the real business of the university, the scholarly pursuits of the dons" (Hague, 177). This development in the professor character must have some connection to the overgrowth prompted by the Robbins Report: as universities received more and more funding, they became less dependent upon students' tuition fees while not having to host as many students as they had been led to expect from the Robbins forecast, resulting in an excess of faculty. Secure in tenured positions and with time to spare, professors were free to indulge themselves in the `pure research' aspect of their vocation. With little or no call to interact with students or the world outside, they turned inward, comfortable within their well-funded world. The Thatcher government's concern with the quality of teaching from those comfortably tenured dons is thus paralleled by the situations posed in academic novels where the relevance (both culturally and economically) of the academy is questioned by academics themselves.

It is interesting to note that the development of the academic novel as a genre is almost simultaneous with the expansion of the university as a result of educational reform. Such expansion as a result of the largesse of the Robbins Report took its toll, however, as the post-graduate system grew too quickly and became unable to support itself or to meet the increased financial burdens created by support staff and programs. It is perhaps no surprise that self-examination began to appear in the academic novel. Questioning the success and the purpose of the system became another key theme, partnering the examination of self- and subject-relevance within that system. Clearly, the concern with an academic's relevance to the outside world was being intensified by the increasingly inflated schooling system. The rise of the modern academic novel parallels the over-quick expansion of the higher education and the increasing dissatisfaction of the academic within the unbalanced educational system.

Although the main characters of academic novels are professors, lecturers and assistants, the actual act of teaching is a marginalized theme in the academic novel; instead, the examination of the place of an academic in the real world is at its heart. Where the relevance of academics and the academy are called into question, the protagonist of the academic novel is often the professor who no longer finds his teaching satisfying. Hague states that "[t]he literature professor, the most frequent figure in the academic novel because it is usually written by a literary critic or literature teacher, is unable to discriminate between life and art. In his desire for life to resemble literature, he imposes aesthetic standards and interpretations onto the chaotic flux of reality in a way which ultimately destroys his ability to perceive objectively or live successfully" (181). In essence, having chosen to specialize in a subject and to enter a university environment, a professor loses the ability to relate to the real world, suffering instead from the superimposition of the analytical systems utilized in academic study upon real life experiences, thereby diminishing or distorting them. Hague points out that in these novels the professor character usually uses his subject (literature) as a simultaneous explication of reality and a shield from it (183), two functions which cannot hope to coexist successfully. While academic protagonists who are shown to be inept social creatures unable to communicate without their analytical systems provide comedy for the reader, they also raise the question that most of the protagonists seem to be struggling with as well: what is the relevance of academia, if it is taken out of context? What is the value of pure research, if it cannot be given back to the world outside the university walls? What is the point of studying reflections of a past real world if it cannot help interpret the contemporary world? At the heart of these characters lies a very basic fear: what if I am no longer necessary? In a world where relevance is based on economic strength and the production of wealth, the academy seems a poor horse to bet on indeed.

Malcolm Bradbury states that in the modern academic novel the academy is used "as an appropriate stage on which to dramatize some of the key social and political concerns that had animated British society from the 1950s on. With their supposed commitment to excellence, liberalism and academic freedom… universities were a key place for considering questions of standards [and] cultural values" (285). As some of the key authors are professors and academic lecturers themselves (i.e. Bradbury, Lodge, Byatt, Amis) or have spent much time in the university environment pursuing at least one degree in tertiary education (Peter Ackroyd, Swift), the issues are being addressed by those at the heart of the educational crisis. The question to be raised is of course the question of audience. Who are these novels being written for? Who is to hear these cries of dissatisfaction and of doubt? Primarily, fellow academics would be interested in these works, as the issues examined are set in the academic sphere and concern academics' situation. There is another audience: the literary readership in general, to whom some of these concerns can hardly be a surprise, presuming that a significant portion of that readership has also pursued some degree of tertiary education. Perhaps not as familiar with the fears felt within the university sphere proper, these readers are the ones to whom these academics communicate their fears. Fundamentally, it is the professors of literature - specifically English literature - who produce these novels, which raises another interesting question: is it specifically the field of English literature being threatened within this educational surfeit? As a result of this literary response, that area of study would appear to be the department most aware of the threat, but it is more likely that English is being used as a representative of the humanities in general, being a field well capable of self-reflexive examination. Ultimately, the field of English literature serves as an excellent representative of the humanities at large when it serves as the setting for academic self-examination. In the obliging era of the Robbins Report, the weakening period of over-growth that ensued, and the ruthless cutbacks of the Thatcher reforms, specialists in the field of English literature stand as painfully precise examples of those doubting the relevance of their jobs.

The authors represented in this study each have their own ways of dealing with the struggle to survive within such a harsh environment. David Lodge offers a solution that involves looking beyond those high academic walls and reintegrating scholarship with other pursuits. A.S. Byatt attempts to reconcile "real life" with academia by providing a happy ending for her protagonists. Graham Swift argues that only by knowing the past can we know today, and that only by means of the transmission of that past can humanity move forward. With the Thatcher reforms striking fear into the hearts of tenured dons everywhere, these authors begin to address the academic situation in fictional environments. Can their protagonists survive in the Thatcher-era academy? Robyn Penrose of Nice Work can, thanks to her enlightening relationship with industrial businessman Vic Wilcox (who also, in his turn, learns valuable lessons from Robyn and her academic outlook). Maud Bailey and Roland Michell of Possession can, by virtue of inheritance laws and by understanding the concept of historical value on a personal level. Waterland's Tom Crick, a history teacher being phased out along with the subject he teaches, survives in his students' lives by virtue of how important he has made history: by revealing how the past is a part of the present. What of the work done by these protagonists? Is it relevant to the outside world? Robyn and Vic enrich each other's lives and chosen fields by sharing workdays and environments. Maud and Roland discover valuable historical documents that are received by people outside their fields with as much interest as by those within. Tom Crick steps outside his curriculum to give his students a sense of place and impresses upon them that history is today, that the Here and Now is in fact also yesterday and tomorrow as well, which as a concept will serve them much better than memorizing the dates of the French Revolution could.

As the years pass, the academic novel becomes more and more concerned with the importance of exploring the present by maintaining a link to the literary past - a conservative action. With the Thatcher emphasis upon technological training, such pursuits are perceived as "unnecessary" or "liberal", and academics in the humanities begin to feel a fear similar to that felt by James Dixon in Lucky Jim, and yet completely different. It becomes not only a question of Will I have a job?, but Will my job exist?. This fear is explored on levels much more complex than these deceptively simple philosophical questions: professors examine their own commitment to their subject; lecturers query the relevance of their subject to life in general; and in an effort to "keep up with the times", academics must learn all the latest political moves and businessman tricks. The nostalgic lament for a simpler, easier age is inherent in the academic novel, nostalgia for an easier time within the academic sphere, before things got out of hand with the unbalancing Robbins Report and ruthlessly pruned by the Thatcher government.

Nostalgia is a compound word which comes from the Greek "nostos" (to return home) and "algia" (a painful condition), in effect a homesickness (Davis, 1). Both Fred Davis and David Lowenthal make the point that nostalgia isn't usually for a particularly historically correct period, but rather for "a generalised and often unspecified past" (Lowenthal, 18-9). Nostalgia is a natural reaction to feeling adrift in one's contemporary era, a desire for a "simple and stable past as a refuge from the turbulent and chaotic present" (21). There are two types of nostalgia which function in the Thatcher era academic novel: the nostalgia felt within the academic community for a time where funding was more bountiful and society more open to the idea of intellectual study of knowledge for knowledge's sake; and the nostalgia encouraged by (and perhaps even felt) by the Tory government for a period of economic success and stability. Nostalgia can rarely be acted upon in the manner desired, however. It is impossible, both physically and mentally, to return to an earlier time, or to bring the "easier" time forward and re-engage it within the modern mindset. It is, in fact, a mode of wishful thinking that is perhaps not as productive as it could be. The three texts hereafter examined all exhibit or examine nostalgia and relationships to the past in different ways as they react to the Robbins/Thatcher educational evolution; the question asked must be, are these two visions of the past - that of the government, and that of the humanities - at odds? Do they conflict, or do they support one another indirectly? Does a scholar's work with the past indirectly support the nostalgia encouraged by the government, or does it subvert it? Ultimately, it can be seen that the academy's view of the past is a very different one: one of personal connection, a view which embraces the past as an essential element of the present, instead of a standard to be re-achieved. The nostalgia exhibited by Thatcherite identification with the nineteenth century is fundamentally shallow, denying any value that the present might hold as an era richer than those past. In Thatcher era academic fiction, the view of the past is anything but nostalgic; the study of history can be productive, but only when paired with a decision to reach out past the ivory walls of the academy to dialogue with the outside world of the present. In effect, the academy does not necessarily yearn for a simpler, less chaotic time; scholars exist as a bridge between history and that chaotic contemporary world.

(c) A. Murphy-Hiscock 2000. Originally published in Reconstructing the Past in the Academic Novel: The Concept of Nostalgia in Thatcher Britain, Magisteriate Thesis May 2000.