The period covered by this book began with the furore over Lady Chatterley's Lover and closed with the controversy caused by Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. The Harvest of the Sixties puts the literature of this period in its cultural, political, and intellectual context, beginning with changes resulting from the end of empire, followed by attempts in the 1970s to maintain a 'common culture', through to the 1980s, which saw a shift towards the acknowledgement of cultural diversity.

Patricia Waugh looks at the effects upon English literature of changes in culture and society throughout this period and makes reference to its wealth of literary talent, including writers and dramatists such as Kingsley Amis, Kazuo Ishiguro, Tom Stoppard, Angela Carter, Doris Lessing, and many more.