Overview

This is the first full-scale history of Mass-Observation, the independent social research organisation which, between 1937 and 1949, set out to document the attitudes, opinions, and every-day lives of the British people. Through a combination of anthropological fieldwork, opinion surveys, and written testimony solicited from hundreds of volunteers, Mass-Observation created a huge archive of popular life during a tumultuous decade which remains central to British national identity. The social history of these years has been immeasurably enriched by the archive, and extracts from the writings of M-O's volunteers have won a wide and admiring audience. Now James Hinton, whose acclaimed Nine Wartime Lives demonstrated how the intensely personal writing of some of M-O's volunteers could be used to shed light on broader historical issues, has written a wonderfully vivid and evocative account which does justice not only to the two founders whose tempestuous relationship dominated the early years of Mass-Observation, but also to the dozens of creative and imaginative, and until now largely unknown, young enthusiasts whose work helped to keep the show on the road. The history of the organisation itself - the staff, the research methods, the struggle for funding, M-O's characteristic 'voice', and its role in the cultural and political life of the period - are themselves as interesting as any of the themes that the founders set out to document. This long-awaited and deeply researched history corrects and revises much of our existing knowledge of Mass-Observation, opens up new and important perspectives on the organisation, and will be seen as the authoritative account for years to come.

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9780199671045

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Reviews

In his new book James Hinton skilfully traces the origins of Mass Observation and takes the reader on a vivid exploration of its internal workings, filling an important gap in the historiography. * Claire M. Hubbard-Hall, Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, UK, International Journal of Regional and Local History * The Mass Observers is academic history at its very best, meticulously researched and uncompromisingly intelligent, but telling a story with narrative skill and populating it with characters who come to life on the page. * Paul Addison, The Literary Review * The result is a manageable and accessible work, and one that should appeal beyond academe and quite appropriately for a study of MO to a broad readership. * Andrew J.H. Jackson, Family and Community History * In reconstituting the missing history of MO, Hintons account is comprehensive in its ambitions and its achievement... this book provides important missing information about the structures, personalities and means through which this ambition was achieved. * Cercles Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone * The Mass Observers is without question an invaluable resource. It has new things to say about MO's place in the history of social science and provides essential context for anyone planning to make use of the riches contained in the MO archive. * James G. Mansell, 20th Century British History * In reconstituting the missing history of MO, Hinton's account is comprehensive in its ambitions and its achievement ... indeed, it will be required reading for academics who wish to understand and even to use MO materials, this is a book that also has a broader appeal. * Annebella Pollen, Cercles *

The result is a manageable and accessible work, and one that should appeal beyond academe and quite appropriately for a study of MO to a broad readership. Andrew J.H. Jackson, Family and Community History

Author Information

James Hinton has published widely on the social history of twentieth-century Britain. His early work in labour history included The First Shop Stewards' Movement (1973) and Labour and Socialism (1983). A spell of intense political activism in the 1980s anti-nuclear movement was reflected in Protests and Visions: Peace Politics in Twentieth-Century Britain (1989). Turning his attention to the 1940s, he has published three monographs on contrasting groups of active citizens: Shop Floor Citizens: Engineering Democracy in 1940s Britain (1994); Women, Social Leadership and the Second World War (2002); and Nine Wartime Lives: Mass-Observation and the Making of the Modern Self (2010).

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