Aftershocks : politics and trauma in Britain, 1918-1931 / Susan Kingsley Kent.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kent, Susan Kingsley, 1952 May 9-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

War neuroses.

History.

Great Britain--Social conditions--20th century.

Great Britain.

Social conditions.

Great Britain--Politics and government--1910-1936.

Politics and government.

War neuroses--Great Britain--History--20th century.

World War, 1914-1918--Great Britain--Psychological aspects.

World War, 1914-1918.

World War, 1914-1918--Social aspects--Great Britain.

Physical Description:

ix, 232 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Basingstoke [England] ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Summary:

Aftershocks argues the crucial connection between structures of feeling and political culture in Britain. Britons incorporated into their understandings of their political selves the meanings attached to shellshock, especially the imagery that informed the view of the traumatized psyche as shattered. The political force of emotions must be appreciated if we are to grasp the political history of Britain in the 1920s, a decade whose historians have failed to come to grips with the extraordinary violence visited upon those regarded at the time as `un-English'. Shellshocked Britons turned to certain political actions to repair the collective psyche: the passage of the Aliens' Act of 1919; the race riots of 1919; the Amritsar massacre in 1919; the reprisals against the Irish in 1919-21; the General Strike of 1926; and the debates over the bill to enfranchise women over the age of 30 in 1927 and the Igbo Women's War of 1929.

Contents:

Britons' shattered psyche

Jews, "blacks," and the promises of the radical right, 1919-1925

The Amritsar Massacre, 1919-1920

Reprisals in Ireland, 1919-1921

The general strike of 1926

Flappers and the Nigerian women's war of 1929 (with Marc Matera)

Conclusion : resolving the "national crisis" of 1929-1931.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 218-225) and index.

ISBN:

9781403993335

1403993335

OCLC:

243602151

Online:

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