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 history, New Directions in Social and Cultural History is an invaluable guide to the current and future state of the field. The book is divided into three clear sections, each with an editorial introduction, and covering key thematic areas: histories of the human, the material world, and challenges and provocations. Each chapter in the collection provides an introduction to the key and recent developments in its specialist field, with their authors then moving on to argue for what they see as particularly important shifts and interventions in the theory and methodology and suggest future developments. New Directions in Social and Cultural History provides a comprehensive and insightful overview of this burgeoning field which will be important reading for all students and scholars of social and cultural history and historiography.

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 through the generations. This collection brings together recent historical work on the cultural memory of the war, examining its presence in family stories, in popular and material culture and in acts of commemoration in Britain between 1945 and the present.

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 cultural history of Britain in the Second World War places death at the heart of our understanding of the British experience of conflict. Drawing on a range of material, Dying for the nation demonstrates just how much death matters in wartime and examines the experience, management and memory of death. It will appeal to anyone with an interest in the social and cultural history of Britain in the Second World War. -- .

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, motherhood, and politics. Written during the war's centenary, the chapters also consider the gendered nature of war memory in Britain, exploring the emotional legacies of the conflict today, and the place of women's wartime stories on the contemporary stage. The collection brings together work by emerging and established scholars contributing to the shared project of rewriting British women's history of the First World War. It is an essential text for anyone researching or studying this history. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women's History Review.

From Boadicea to Joan of Arc, through wars of occupation and resistance, to civil wars and world wars, women have been active participants in warfare at many different points in history and in many different situations. However, women's presence in the forces has consistently been viewed as problematic and 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, as well as during peacetime, in the interwar era and postwar 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 destabilize clear-cut notions of identity by unsettling the masculine territory of warfare. Noakes also examines the tensions that arose as the army attempted to reconcile its need for female labor with their desire to ensure that the military remained a male preserve.
Drawing on a range of archival sources, including previously unpublished letters and diaries, official documents, newspapers and magazines, Women in the British Army uncovers the gendered discourses of the army to reveal that it was a key site in the formation of male and female identities.

From Boadicea to Joan of Arc, through wars of occupation and resistance, to civil wars and world wars, women have been active participants in warfare at many different points in history and in many different situations. However, women's presence in the forces has consistently been viewed as problematic and 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, as well as during peacetime, in the interwar era and postwar 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 destabilize clear-cut notions of identity by unsettling the masculine territory of warfare. Noakes also examines the tensions that arose as the army attempted to reconcile its need for female labor with their desire to ensure that the military remained a male preserve.
Drawing on a range of archival sources, including previously unpublished letters and diaries, official documents, newspapers and magazines, Women in the British Army uncovers the gendered discourses of the army to reveal that it was a key site in the formation of male and female identities.

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, motherhood, and politics. Written during the war's centenary, the chapters also consider the gendered nature of war memory in Britain, exploring the emotional legacies of the conflict today, and the place of women's wartime stories on the contemporary stage. The collection brings together work by emerging and established scholars contributing to the shared project of rewriting British women's history of the First World War. It is an essential text for anyone researching or studying this history. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women's History Review.

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 cultural history of Britain in the Second World War places death at the heart of our understanding of the British experience of conflict. Drawing on a range of material, Dying for the nation demonstrates just how much death matters in wartime and examines the experience, management and memory of death. The book will appeal to anyone with an interest in the social and cultural history of Britain in the Second World War. -- .

We know that conflict, and people's memory of it, profoundly shapes both individual selfhoods and social identities. War and the British explores key ideas of British collective nationhood and personal identity, and in particular shines an important spotlight on the impact of gender on Britain's national consciousness, from the outbreak of World War II in 1939 to the end of the Gulf War in 1991. This book builds on current historiography by examining how notions about gender shaped the experiences of the war and how it was remembered in the collective public consciousness. It argues that, despite women's wartime role in 'total war', men in the armed forces were encouraged to regard themselves as being bound together in unity by masculinity and common experience, while women remained individuals with prime responsibilities to home and family. As Lucy Noakes shows, during the Second World War, the British government ensured that lipstick and corsets were never scarce, so that less soldiers returned from war disappointed by the ‘unfeminine’ women who greeted them. Thus, Noakes demonstrates how the conflicts strengthened gender boundaries by grouping men together in a masculine experience of combat from which women were strictly excluded. The 'People’s War' it was not. Now with a new preface, revised introduction and foreword by Penny Summerfield, War and the British provides an incisive analysis of public and private ideas of national identity in times of war and how they were shaped by gender. The result is a valuable addition to scholarly debates, which will be of interest to students and scholars studying the intersection of gender and war in Britain.

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 history, New Directions in Social and Cultural History is an invaluable guide to the current and future state of the field. The book is divided into three clear sections, each with an editorial introduction, and covering key thematic areas: histories of the human, the material world, and challenges and provocations. Each chapter in the collection provides an introduction to the key and recent developments in its specialist field, with their authors then moving on to argue for what they see as particularly important shifts and interventions in the theory and methodology and suggest future developments. New Directions in Social and Cultural History provides a comprehensive and insightful overview of this burgeoning field which will be important reading for all students and scholars of social and cultural history and historiography.

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 through the generations. This collection brings together recent historical work on the cultural memory of the war, examining its presence in family stories, in popular and material culture and in acts of commemoration in Britain between 1945 and the present.