Seven Lives from Mass Observation

James Hinton, Professor Emeritus at the University of Warwick, 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 published two 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). Since retiring in 2004 he has worked on Mass Observation, publishing Nine Wartime Lives: Mass-Observation and the Making of the Modern Self (2010) and The Mass Observers: A History, 1937-1949 (2013).

This immensely readable and thoroughly captivating volume is about contemplating our own lives as much as the lives of the observers. Hinton suggests an overt rethinking of our own autobiographical biases as historians while deftly uncovering the subtle and not-so-subtle motives of his historical subjects. This is a valuable work that not only promises to redirect future uses of MO but also offers a key shift in the historiography toward an anthropological model for assessing historical documents like those produced for and by MO.

• 1: Mass Observation 2: Histories 3: Housewife 4: Teacher 5: Social Worker 6: RAF Wife 7: Mechanic 8: Lorry Driver 9: Banker 10: Conclusion Bibliography