The People's Victory
VE Day Through the Eyes of Those Who Were There
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Atlantic Books
Publishing:1st May '25
£22.00
This title is due to be published on 1st May, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
IN 1937, Charles Madge and Tom Harrisson created the social survey organisation Mass Observation to capture the thoughts, feelings and minutiae of individuals across the British Isles. At its height Mass Observation had 1,000 concurrent writers - stretching from Penzance to Aberdeen and including miners, academics and housewives - and collected over 1 million individual diary entries between 1937 and 1960.
In The People's Victory, historian Lucy Noakes mines the Mass Observation archive to present a groundbreaking history of how Britons at home celebrated and experienced the end of World War II. Alongside street celebrations and tea parties, we find bonfires and bell ringing, water fights and wagon rides, solitary and shared walks - and copious amounts of alcohol. However, as Noakes also reveals, not everyone felt like celebrating that May: many were still waiting for news of family members who had vanished in the fog of war, whilst thousands of British soldiers were still interned in the Far East.
By centring the voices, feelings and fears of the public at the heart of the People's War, Noakes also traces the hopes and changing attitudes of a nation in flux, revealing how the camaraderie and selflessness of wartime led to the birth of the welfare state.
The People's Victory is an intimate, and profoundly moving, encounter with ordinary lives in a moment of extraordinary change. Drawing on the unparalleled riches of the UK's Mass Observation Archive, it shows us that wartime people were complex, surprising and thoughtful - in fact people quite like us. The book is authoritative, enlightening, and narratively gripping, as it takes us on a journey through the last days of war in the company of those who lived through it. * Professor Claire Langhamer, Director of the Institute of Historical Research *
This remarkable book delves into perhaps the most meaningful day in 20th-century British history. 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, and draws on the wealth of material in the Mass Observation archive to understand how the nation was truly feeling. * Becky Brown, editor of Blitz Spirit *
Drawing on the fabulous Mass Observation Archive, Noakes has written an entirely new social history of the Second World War.The People's Victory is a moving and engaging account of ordinary people's everyday experiences, and responses to, one of the most significant moments in twentieth-century British history. It is a compelling read. * Professor Emerita Penny Summerfield *
Ambitious in its span and nuanced in its analysis, The People's Victory offers a compelling portrait of a nation at war. Lucy Noakes has rescued from relative obscurity a rich and complex archive, one that lends insight into the hopes, dreams and fears of an embattled generation. This book is a tour de force and a major contribution to the way we remember war. * Bruce Scates, Professor of History, Australian National University *
Lucy Noakes's fascinating chronicle of VE Day, 8 May 1945, draws on the hundreds of contemporary accounts in the Mass Observation archive to create a vivid picture of the hopes, fears, and excitement of ordinary people across Britain at the moment the war in Europe ended. * Professor Alan Allport, award-winning author of Britain at Bay *
ISBN: 9781838955120
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
352 pages
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