Overview

This original and fresh approach to the emotions of adolescence focuses on the leisure lives of working-class boys and young men in the inter-war years. Being Boys challenges many stereotypes about their behaviour. It offers new perspectives on familiar and important themes in interwar social and cultural history, ranging from the cinema and mass consumption to boys' clubs, personal advice pages, street cultures, dancing, sexuality, mobility and the body. It draws on many 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 contemporary leisure developments. Being Boys will be of interest to scholars and students across the humanities and social sciences and is also relevant to those teaching and studying in the fields of child development, education, and youth and community studies. -- .

Full Product Details

Author:   Melanie Tebbutt ,  Pamela Sharpe ,  Penny Summerfield ,  Lynn Abrams
Publisher:   Manchester University Press
Imprint:   Manchester University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 13.80cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 21.60cm
Weight:   0.567kg
ISBN:  

9780719066139

ISBN 10:   0719066131
Pages:   336
Publication Date:   21 February 2012
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable  
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Table of Contents

Introduction 1. Looking at youth 2. Ordinary boys and masculine men 3. Bodies and appearance 4. Sex and sentiment 5. Seeking advice 6. Dancing and gender 7. Movement, motion and street space 8. Being a boy and becoming a man Conclusions Bibliography Index -- .

Reviews

This well-researched book is a corrective to depictions of working-class young men as rigidly masculine -- 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 20120524

This well-researched book is a corrective to depictions of working-class young men as rigidly masculine -- Jad Adams. The TLS 20120525

'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 '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.' John Griffiths, Reviews in History, 24/05/2012 -- John Griffiths. Reviews in History 'The 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, December 2012 -- . 'A valuable contextual source for historians of post-war youth' Sarah Mills, Contemporary British History, May 2013 -- . 'A fresh and welcome contribution to our understanding of youth in twentieth-century Britain' Kate Bradley, Twentieth Century British History, 2012 -- . 'Being Boys makes an important contribution to the nexus of the history of interwar society and culture, of the history of gender and of childhood and youth, and of the history of leisure and consumerism.' Stephanie Olsen, Journal of British Studies, 52 (3) July 2013 -- . The historian Melanie Tebbutt, Les Tebbutt's daughter, has drawn on her father's teenage diary entries, as well as contemporary memories and interviews, to try to reconstruct the inner lives of working class boys in the interwar years. -- Alan Allport. London Review of Books

'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 -- .

Author Information

Melanie Tebbutt is Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University

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