ABSTRACT
The history of twentieth-century urban rioting in Britain also occupies two distinct phases: a period, from 1900 to 1962, where violence was interracial in form, corresponding to Janowitz’s (1969) community riots; and a period, lasting from the 1970s to the present day, where violence has taken the form of confrontations between black youths and the police, approximating to Janowitz’s commodity riots. As with the American disorders, it is impossible to fully understand the British riots without first considering twentieth-century patterns of migration.
