
One of the co-founders of the Mass Observation project, Tom Harrison used many of the then-unpublished records of the organisation to put together this record of people's experiences on the British home front during the bombings of the Second World War- first-hand accounts recorded by people as they lived through the Blitz. Unlike earlier histories of the war, whether propagandist or simply patriotic, Harrisson's version doesn't close its eyes to the terrors and misery of the bombings, nor to the failure of the authorities to alleviate the suffering caused by the raids.Published posthumously in 1976, Living through the Blitz was part of the first wave of revisionism that washed clear the rose-tinting of earlier historians and made the blitz experience comprehensible for future generations.
How did the civilian population of Britain experience the psychological and physical realities of the Blitz during the Second World War? Tom Harrisson, a co-founder of the Mass Observation project, utilizes a vast archive of primary source records to construct a candid account of life on the British home front. By prioritizing the unfiltered voices of ordinary citizens over official government narratives, Harrisson argues that the reality of the Blitz was defined as much by administrative failure and individual misery as it was by national resilience.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Historians and scholars recognize this work as a foundational text in the revisionist history of the British home front. Readers frequently note the raw, unvarnished nature of the testimonies, which provide a stark contrast to the patriotic narratives common in earlier accounts.
Page Count:
368
Publication Date:
1978-01-01
Publisher:
Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN-10:
0140046127
ISBN-13:
9780140046120
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