Mass-Observation

Mass-Observation was a social research project that operated for several decades across the middle of the twentieth century. This volume reprints the founding pamphlet the project produced in 1937, with expert commentary running through the text.

The book also gathers newly written essays by established scholars of Mass-Observation, along with interviews with them. These pieces look at the project's origins, the organisation itself, and its influence on several disciplines, including history, sociology and anthropology. The editor's introductory essay pulls these arguments together, supplies historical context, and suggests ways that other fields could draw on Mass-Observation's approaches and archival material.

A chronology charts the project's development, its publications and the major figures associated with it. Together these materials open a window onto everyday life in Britain during the twentieth century, and the book is designed as an introduction to the project's original aims and to why its material still matters today.