Local History and the Twentieth Century: An Overview and Suggested Agenda

Everyone who reads this article on its publication in 2011 will, unless they are alarmingly precocious, have lived through part of the twentieth century. This immediately puts us all in a unique relationship with that period of the past. It is all our personal histories. If being a historian is about achieving a balance of perspectives, on the one hand attaining a necessary critical distance, on the other becoming involved in understanding the experiences of people and places, then writing the history of the twentieth century brings particular challenges. Brian Short has concluded that, 'Many local historians simply cannot come to terms with the twentieth century,.1 It is certainly a past which is uncomfortably close, making detached judgement at best difficult and at worst impossible. The fields of enquiry which are the bread and butter of local history family, politics, religion, power, property, influence include some of the most sensitive and contentious areas of recent experience. The sheer volume of evidence makes its management and discriminating analysis particularly demanding. The nature of that evidence, both public records and private testimonies, often makes it complex to access and problematic to interpret. Yet the twentieth century has become the most voluminously visible and the most influential period in the local histories of individuals and places throughout Britain. It now stands complete, awaiting retrospective scrutiny, recording and analysis. Implicit and