Raymond Williams—a Welsh media critic and a pioneer of cultural studies—believed that the traditional focus of biographies on individuals isolated these people from their communities. For this reason Alan O Connor looks at Williams and his time period—one of social change and crisis. Williams son of a railway worker would have pursued university studies had World War II not disrupted his plans. So the unorthodox intellectual worked outside the university until 1960 his revolutionary media studies emphasizing the interchange between culture and democracy. O Connor concludes with the same message Williams advocated: In a period dominated by conservative forces it is still worthwhile to struggle for small changes.