1st Edition
We Europeans? Mass-Observation, Race and British Identity in the Twentieth Century
By Tony Kushner
Copyright 2004
296 Pages
by
Routledge
296 Pages
by
Routledge
296 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
We Europeans is the first book-length study of the original mass observation project. It is also the first detailed historical study of the formation of ordinary people's 'racial' attitudes in Britain. Drawing upon historical, literary, cultural and anthropological approaches, this book examines the sources of cultural identity in Britain in the twentieth century, and how these were shaped through... Read more
Contents: Preface; Part 1 Contexts: Introduction: mass-observation, difference and the 'anthropology of ourselves'; Mass-observation, 'race' and nation. Part 2 Praxis - From Fieldwork To Directive: Exploring otherness: mass-observation in 'darkest' Britain; Beyond the opinion poll? The mass-observation directive. Part 3 Of Ourselves, By Ourselves: The Mass-Observation Diaries: Mass-observation and the genre of diary writing; Racism with the boots off? From Individual prejudice to collective violence in the mass-observation diaries; 'I am all women who are tortured': persecuted Jews at home and abroad and the mass-observation diaries; The intimacy of difference: confronting minorities in everyday life through the mass-observation diaries. Conclusion and afterword: reclaiming the Volvox; Bibliography; Index.
Biography
Tony Kushner is Marcus Sieff Professor in Jewish/non-Jewish Relations in the Department of History and Parkes Institute, University of Southampton, UK.
'A highly original take on the tortuous ways in which questions about race and Britishness have helped to shape what it means to be part of the nation and of British culture more broadly ... a really wonderful book.' Professor John Solomos, Centre for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, City University, London 'Kushner's painstaking scholarship, well presented by Ashgate - with footnotes where they belong - fills a hole in the history of ethnic relations in Britain. It will be indispensable to anyone working on Jewish or British social history, 'race' and immigration, anthropology and sociology.' Jewish Chronicle 'Kushner has produced an extremely important and readable analysis of everyday attitudes towards ethnic minorities in Britain during the 1930s and 1940s.' Times Higher Educational Supplement 'Kushner's book is intelligent, sophisticated, and humane...' The International History Review '... Kushner provides some really interesting excerpts from the project which highlight its potential as an anthropological resource... One of the great merits of the book is its honest assessment of the Mass Observation project.' Social Anthropology ’... We Europeans? is an ambitious and important study that carefully illuminates popular racial attitudes and the sources of those attitudes in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s.’ Journal of British Studies
