I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Association of Commonwealth Universities and the British Council (for funding my postgraduate research at the John Logie Baird Centre, Strathclyde University, Glasgow) and of the Coca-Cola Foundation (for financing a research fellowship at the Center for Humanities, Wesleyan University, Connecticut).
I am very grateful to many people for their advice and support during the writing of this book and the PhD dissertation from which it derives. First, my thanks go to those interviewees, informants and guides who spent time with me, on and off the dancefloor, sharing their experience of, and insights into, British dance culture. Thanks also to Andy Linehan at the National Sound Archive for his help with research and to David Swindells at Time Out for kindly allowing me to reproduce his photographs. Second, I want to express my profound appreciation to the following friends, students and mentors for their constructive comments on various chapters and drafts of the book. In alphabetical order, they are: José Arroyo, Brian Austin, Jacob Bricca, Matt Callaghan, Stephi Donald, Alan Durant, Leslie Felperin, Wendy Fonarow, Andrew Goodwin, Reesa Greenberg, Larry Grossberg, Dave Hesmondhalgh, Kate Lacey, Rachel Malik, Martin Montgomery, Mica Nava, Keith Negus, Richard Ohmann, Patria Roman, Kitty Scott, Roger Silverstone, Paul Theberge and John Thompson. I would especially like to thank Angela McRobbie and my dissertation supervisor, Simon Frith, for their invaluable and enduring guidance.
Finally, this book would not have been written without the steadfast support of my parents, Glenda and Monte Thornton, and my ad hoc editor and partner, Jeremy Silver.