This original and fresh approach to the emotions of adolescence focuses on the leisure lives of working-class boys and young men in the inter-war years. Being boys challenges many stereotypes about their behaviour. It offers new perspectives on familiar and important themes in inter-war social and cultural history, ranging from the cinema and mass consumption to boys' clubs, personal advice pages, street cultures, dancing, sexuality, mobility and the body. It draws on many autobiographies and personal accounts and is particularly distinctive in offering an unusual insight into working-class adolescence through the teenage diaries of the author's father, which are interwoven with the book's broader analysis of contemporary leisure developments. Being boys will be of interest to scholars and students across the humanities and social sciences and is also relevant to those teaching and studying in the fields of child development, education, and youth and community studies. -- .

This book of essays on British social and cultural history since the eighteenth century draws attention to relatively neglected topics including personal and collective identities, the meanings of place, especially locality, and the significance of cultures of association. Themes range from rural England in the eighteenth century to the urbanizing society of the nineteenth century; from the Home Front in the First World War to voluntary action in the welfare state; from post 1945 civic culture to the advice columns of teenage magazines and the national press. Various aspects of civil society connect these themes notably: the different identities of place, locality and association that emerged with the growth of an urban environment during the nineteenth century and the shifting landscape of twentieth-century public discourse on social welfare and personal morality. It is of interest that several of the essays take Manchester or Lancashire as their focus. -- .

This new study explores how British youth was made, and how it made itself, over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Urbanisation and industrialisation brought challenges that altered how young people were both perceived and understood. As adults found it difficult to comprehend the rapidity of societal change, focus on the young intensified, and they became a symbol of uncertainty about the future. Highlighting both change and striking continuity, Melanie Tebbutt traces the origins and development of key themes and debates in the history of modern British youth. Current issues such as the ageing of western societies, high levels of youth unemployment and the potential for social and political unrest make this a timely study.

This new study explores how British youth was made, and how it made itself, over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Urbanisation and industrialisation brought challenges that altered how young people were both perceived and understood. As adults found it difficult to comprehend the rapidity of societal change, focus on the young intensified, and they became a symbol of uncertainty about the future. Highlighting both change and striking continuity, Melanie Tebbutt traces the origins and development of key themes and debates in the history of modern British youth. Current issues such as the ageing of western societies, high levels of youth unemployment and the potential for social and political unrest make this a timely study.