Madman in a Box

The Social History of 'Doctor Who'

From Doctor Who‘s modest if promising beginnings, it has gone on to become a global media empire, providing its viewers with a powerful lens by which the past fifty years can be evaluated.

Having been on the air for more than fifty years, Doctor Who, a programme dealing with time travel, has itself become a sort of time machine, allowing viewers to observe and evaluate changes in their world.

In this fascinating book, history professor David Johnson looks at how the programme’s storytelling has reflected social developments over the past five decades in various areas of content such as computers, medical advances, war and gender.

The ‘madman with a box’ has spent more than fifty years in a box – a television box – helping the audience to explore social issues and new technologies in an entertaining and informative way.