Once a ”respectable” white working-class suburb, Cowley Road is today the heartland of alternative Oxford. Famous for its restaurants & specialist shops, the street has also developed a n enviable reputation for its music & nightlife. Half a century of immigration & student growth has transformed Cowley Road into a lively thoroughfare synonymous with youth & multicultural expression. Annie Skinner traces the development of Cowley Road, looking at the impact of changing population & tastes on an urban environment. She considers how the street survived potentially devastating planning blight, witnessed political ferment in the 1970s & 1980s, & finally became a fashionably bohemian part of Oxford. Based on interviews & local archives, she reveals a largely untold history of a street that is both typical of modern Britain & unique in its political & cultural dynamism. * Cultural melting-pot: churches & mosques; restaurants & retailing; a multi-ethnic community. * Politics & protest: revolutionaries & hippies; a tradition of radicalism; feminism & gay rights; the fight against racism; reds & greens.* Dancing in the street: Radiohead, Supergrass & the Zodiac; the street that never sleeps; the Cowley Road Carnival.