Within the broader international perspective, Stuart always located 1956 as a key historical date for him—when the various crises of the old imperial structures were dramatized, as the Russian tanks rolled into Budapest to quell the rebellion and a Franco-British force invaded Egypt to resist President Nasser’s claims on the Suez Canal (the “windpipe of the British Empire,” as a contemporary phrase had it). The significance of that internationalist moment for Stuart has been widely remarked—and rightly so, as we shall see, for much of his later concerns with questions of postcolonialism and diaspora can be traced back to the early 1950s. However, in this chapter Stuart is more concerned to recognize, on the domestic front, the significance of the particular transformations in Britain’s national culture. 2

Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, loc. 76020