Narrating the thirties

by John Baxendale

Ever since the 1930s, stories about 'Britain in the thirties' have been numerous, contradictory and hotly contested. It is the 'red decade' of Spain and the Communist poets. It is the 'devil's decade' of mass unemployment and hunger marches, of Blackshirts, appeasement, and the drift towards war. It is the first age of high mass consumption, of suburbia, the Daily Express and dance-bands on the radio. It is the last age of high-spending luxury, of Brideshead, art-deco nightclubs and transatlantic liners. It is the moment of capitalism's crisis, and/or of its renewal. John Baxendale and Chris Pawling argue that none of these narratives represents the 'real' thirties. Rather, the ever-changing constructions of the decade have reflected the conflicts and concerns of the world that came afterwards - which, moreover, they have played a crucial part in shaping. In a series of case-studies ranging widely from the documentary film movement, C. L. R. James and J. B. Priestley, to postwar histor