London's Burning started life in 1980 as a thesis that was written on a manual typewriter, glued together fanzine-style and illustrated with photocopied images from magazines, fanzines and newspapers. It came with a home-taped audio cassette featuring 30 punk songs. I wrote it for a BA degree in sociology at the University of Antwerpen in Belgium.

Thirty years later I have translated it into English, and thanks to modern technology like print-on-demand, it is now available as a book (through Createspace.com) and also for Kindle. Being able to publish your own book without relying on a mainstream publisher seems very punk rock, in a way.

Doing original scholarly research into punk in a different country was quite a challenge and an expensive one for a poor student: there were no such things as the internet, Euro tunnel or cheap airfares. I did several long study trips, including study at the City of London Polytechnic with nightly forays into the punk scene. I had to look to the UK music press for information as the music press in Belgium was very anti-punk and ignored it for as long as they possibly could.

London’s Burning explores the sociology of punk in Britain, its history and cultural aspects such as music, imagery, fanzine publications and independent record labels. It now reads more like social and cultural history than sociology. Sure, it’s an academic work, but put together with the enthusiastic feel of a fanzine.

It is a historical piece set in a time when the story of punk was still very much unfolding. You cannot read it with the benefit of thirty years of subcultural hindsight. It's a document of its time.

About the author: Hans Versluys is from Belgium where he was a DJ, edited fanzines and studied sociology. He now lives in New Zealand where he works as a public television programmer.

Cover design by Peter McLennan - original photography of The Clash by Jonathan Ganley, from their Auckland show in 1982.
 
ISBN978-1456435660 - Online sale: www.createspace.com/3522404 (US$19.99+p&p)