History of Everyday Life in Twentieth-Century Scotland

Lynn Abrams is Professor of Modern History and Head of the School of Humanities at the University of Glasgow. She has published widely on Scottish gender history and was convenor of Women’s History Scotland 2008-13. Her many publications include Oral History Theory (2010), Myth and Materiality in a Woman’s World: Shetland 1800-2000 (2005) and Gender in Scottish History Since 1700 (2006). Callum G. Brown is Professor of Religious and Cultural History at the University of Dundee. He is a past editor of the Journal of Scottish Historical Studies.

• Chapter 1, Lynn Abrams and Callum G. Brown, Introduction; Chapter 2: Callum G. Brown, Charting everyday experience; Chapter 3: Lynn Abrams and Linda Fleming, From scullery to conservatory: everyday life in the Scottish home; Chapter 4: Lynn Jamieson, Changing intimacy in the twentieth century: seeking and forming couple relationships; Chapter 5: Arthur McIvor, The realities and narratives of paid work: the Scottish workplace in the twentieth century; Chapter 6: Hilary Young, Being a man: everyday masculinities in twentieth-century Scotland; Chapter 7: Callum G. Brown, Spectacle, restraint and the twentieth-century Sabbath wars: the 'everyday' Scottish Sunday; Chapter 8: Steven Sutcliffe, After 'the religion of my fathers': the quest for composure in the 'post-presbyterian' self; Chapter 9: Angela Bartie, Culture in the everyday: art and society in twentieth-century Scotland; Chapter 10: John Stewart, Sickness and health in twentieth-century Scotland; Chapter 11: E.W. McFarland, Passing time: death in twentieth-century Scotland.

In any number of ways, this is a welcome and stimulating book. As one would expect, each chapter is informed by deep familiarity with both the secondary literature and a wide range of primary materials, making it a valuable jumping-off point for further research (something which is further facilitated by the ubiquitous lists of supplementary reading). Moreover, the book is heavily infused with an interdisciplinary ethos. In a number of chapters, conventional historical scholarship overlaps with sociology and cultural studies. Even more striking is the broad array of methodologies on display.