Being Boys: Youth, Leisure and Identity in the Inter-war Years (Gender in History) - Hardcover

Melanie Tebbutt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0719066131 ISBN 13: 9780719066139

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2012

Synopsis

Being Boys offers a fresh and original approach to the masculinities, subjectivities and emotions of adolescence by exploring the leisure lives of working-class boys and young men in the inter-war years. The book offers new perspectives on familiar and important themes in interwar social and cultural history, going beneath the collective identities and outward conformity to peer pressure which were so powerful in the lives of working-class young males to challenge many stereotypes about their behaviour. Being Boys develops a subtle analysis of the everyday conformities of youthful masculinities which suggests new approaches and questions about the inter-war history of youth and leisure. It draws on a wide range of 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 a range of contemporary leisure developments, which include the cinema and mass consumption to boys' clubs, personal advice pages, street cultures, dancing, sexuality, mobility and the body. This gives the book a broad appeal across the humanities and social sciences and also makes it relevant to those teaching and studying in the fields of child development, education, and youth and community studies.

About this title

Product Description:

Melanie Tebbutt presents a study of male conformity and adolescent working-class masculinities of the 1920s and 1930s in the context of contemporary leisure developments such as the cinema, boys' clubs and street cultures.

Review:

'This well-researched book is a corrective to depictions of working-class young men as rigidly masculine.' Jad Adams, The TLS, 25/05/2012 -- Jad Adams. The TLS 20120525 'Being boys' is a welcome addition to the literature on inter-war youth; contributing to our understanding of American influences across this 20-year period and offering insights into aspects of experiences that affected all young men, not just a minority. The book furthermore signposts future directions that historians of youth may usefully take over the ensuing decade. John Griffiths, Reviews in History, 24/05/2012 -- John Griffiths. Reviews in History 20120524 'he ultimate success of this marvellous book lies in the way that Tebbutt allows the private voices behind the public swagger of the 'monkey parade' to articulate the longing in 1930's Britain for a better world while also showing how, in their own small way, boys like Les helped that world come into being.' Richard Weight, History Today, 1 December 2012 --.

About this edition

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0719066131
• ISBN 13: 9780719066139
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352