Social History books

30 replies

Solasum · 23/04/2024 13:51

I recently picked up The Road to Wigan Pier, and was very interested by the first section, which discusses real life for ordinary people, not just the upper classes that appear in many other books.

Can anyone recommend anything similar that I might enjoy? Readable Social history, basically.

Many Thanks

OP posts:

DeanElderberry · 23/04/2024 18:47

The Uses of Literacy by Richard Hoggart; a study of mass media and working class life in England, first published in 1957. Very readable.

CrossPurposes · 23/04/2024 18:40

Virginia Nicholson's Millions Like Us and How Was It For You focusing on women in the forties and sixties. There is one in the fifties but I've not read that one yet.

PoppingTomorrow · 23/04/2024 17:46

Hidden Lives by Margaret Forster

YYURYYUCICYYUR4ME · 23/04/2024 17:44

Round about a pound a week, by Maud Pember Reeves.

Hartley99 · 23/04/2024 17:42

Orwell: Down and Out in Paris and London
Tressell: Ragged Trousered Philanthropist

More generally, Hardy and Dickens give you a pretty good feel for working-class life. Dickens covers the urban poor and Hardy the rural poor.

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