' The VE Day book' Amol Rajan, Today, Radio 4'Although redolent with the scent of bonfires and patterned with the crisscross of bunting, The People's Victory does far more than just paint a picture of VE Day; it captures the emotional complexity of a moment that was both an end and a beginning' Becky Brown, editor of Blitz SpiritIN 1937, Charles Madge and Tom Harrisson created the social survey organisation Mass Observatio...

Few historical events have resonated as much in modern British culture as the Second World War. It has left a rich legacy in a range of media that continue to attract a wide audience: film, TV and radio, photography and the visual arts, journalism and propaganda, architecture, museums, music and literature. The enduring presence of the war in the public world is echoed in its ongoing centrality in many personal and family memories, with stories of the Second World War being recounted throu...

Death in war matters. It matters to the individual, threatened with their own death, or the death of loved ones. It matters to groups and communities who have to find ways to manage death, to support the bereaved and to dispose of bodies amidst the confusion of conflict. It matters to the state, which has to find ways of coping with mass death that convey a sense of gratitude and respect for the sacrifice of both the victims of war, and those that mourn in their wake. This social and cultu...

This lively collection of essays showcases recent research into the impact of the conflict on British women during the First World War and since.Looking outside of the familiar representations of wartime women as nurses, munitionettes, and land girls, it introduces the reader to lesser-known aspects of women’s war experience, including female composers’ musical responses to the war, changes in the culture of women’s mourning dress, and the complex relationships between war, motherh...

What does it mean to be a social and cultural historian today? In the wake of the 'cultural turn', and in an age of digital and public history, what challenges and opportunities await historians in the early 21st century? In this exciting new text, leading historians reflect on key developments in their fields and argue for a range of 'new directions' in social and cultural history. Focusing on emerging areas of historical research such as the history of the emotions and environmental hist...

In this fascinating, timely and engaging study, Lucy Noakes examines women's role in the army and female military organizations during the First and Second World Wars, during peacetime, in the interwar era and in the post-war period.Providing a unique examination of women’s struggle for acceptance by the British army, Noakes argues that women in uniform during the first half of the twentieth century challenged traditional notions of gender and threatened to destabilise clear-cut no...

The First World War Centenary of 2014-2018 was a defining period of public engagement in the United Kingdom. Capturing Commemoration provides the first dedicated examination of this period and the activities that marked it. Collaboratively written by leading experts in the field, this study explores how the Centenary was marked as both a national and a transnational commemoration, how it defined national identity, as well as how it was transmitted within museum exhibitions, digita...

What was it that the British people believed they were fighting for in 1914–18? This compelling history of the British home front during the First World War offers an entirely new account of how British society understood and endured the war. Drawing on official archives, memoirs, diaries and letters, Adrian Gregory sheds new light on the public reaction to the war, examining the role of propaganda and rumour in fostering patriotism and hatred of the enemy. He shows the importance of the e...

The first volume of Hennessy's postwar history of Britain concerns an age dominated by the shadow of war. With the beginnings of the Cold War, the foundations of the new Europe and the granting of independence of former colonies, Britain was forced to negotiate a new place in the world. It was also a time of rationing and of rebuilding, marked by the founding of the NHS and the welfare state. This comprehensive history embraces both high politics and everyday experience. It recreates the m...

The Myth of the Blitz was nurtured at every level of society. It rested upon the assumed invincibility of an island race distinguished by good humour, understatement and the ability to pluck victory from the jaws of defeat by team work, improvisation and muddling through.In fact, in many ways, the Blitz was not like that. Sixty-thousand people were conscientious objectors; a quarter of London's population fled to the country; Churchill and the royal family were booed while touring ...

Which People's War? examines how national belonging, or British national identity, was envisaged in the public culture of the World War II home front. Using materials from newspapers, magazines, films, novels, diaries, letters, and all sorts of public documents, it explores such questions as: who was included as 'British' and what did it mean to be British? How did the British describe themselves as a singular people, and what were the consequences of those depictions? It also exa...

Like so many of the postwar generation in Britain, Peter Hennessy climbed the ladders of opportunity set up by the 1944 Education Act designed to encourage a more meritocratic society. In this highly personal book, Hennessy examines the rise of meritocracy as a concept and the persistence of the shadowy notion of an establishment in Britain’s institutions of state. He asks whether these elusive concepts still have any power to explain British society, and why they continue to fascinate us....