Paul Richard Thompson Knihy

Photographs capture the world of the Edwardians focusing on society, poverty, work, countryside, city and town, the cycle of life, leisure, and the moral order

Everyone who lived during the reign of Edward VII was an Edwardian, not merely the rich, the literary or the scandalous. In this classic work, Paul Thompson records the life stories of some five hundred Edwardians, born between 1872 and 1906, in a pioneering use of oral history, which captures a unique record of their times. Domestics, labourers, skilled and semi-skilled workers, professionals and high society men and women describe their work, their families, their politics and their leisure. The book establishes and describes the most important dimensions of social change in the early twentieth century: class structure, gender distinctions, age distinctions - urban and rural - and regional differences. It also evaluates the forces for social change in the period: economic pressures, religious and political conviction, feminism and socialism, patriotism and the war, to reveal how near and how far Edwardian society was to revolution in this time of critical social change. By giving a voice to the contribution and experience of ordinary people, Paul Thompson brings the Edwardian era vividly to life. This new edition is substantially revised and includes a new chapter, to take into account major historiographical and social changes since the book's publication in 1975. It has new photographs and an up-to-date bibliography.

1983, British trade paperback edition, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, U.K. 398 pages. Maps / b&w photos throughout. Very unusual title, beautifully done, which deals with the issue of "... the past and the future of all who live from the sea." Drawing on more than 150 life story interviews with men and women from Scottish and English fishing communities, the book also bases itself on hitherto unused private and public records. A really well done title in the publisher's History Workshop series.

In this new edition of a standard text on the subject, Paul Thompson argues that oral history, though largely neglected by conventional historians, can help to create a truer, more democratic picture of the past, documenting the lives and feelings of all types of people. In addition to tracing the development, theory, and practical methods of oral history, this edition includes many new examples and chapters, and an enlarged bibliography, bringing Thompson's work completely up to date.