Re-evaluating Declinism in Twentieth Century Civil Society
There is a strong assumption, ranging across academic boundaries, that community, and identity through participation have declined noticeably through the twentieth century, and particularly recently. Even optimists suggest that if this is not the case, then the right type of people are no longer volunteering to serve as they had in the past. There is broad agreement, too, that the process of disassociation gathered pace after the First World War, so that prominent men of business and commerce no longer came forward to volunteer. This project tests whether or not this sense of declinism is not seriously misplaced, or at the very least that any decline was delayed until the second half of the twentieth century.
Local and National Perceptions of the Pre-NHS Hospital System At a time of major health reform it is worth questioning our assumptions about the financial viability of, and levels of popular dissatisfaction with, the hospital system that existed before the founding of the National Health Service. It is widely assumed that the system was unpopular, discriminatory and economically unviable - indeed such stories have become accepted as part of a national grand narrative of progression. Yet the answers upon closer examination are much more fragmented, much less in favour of reform in 1948 than would first be thought.
