Surviving MA

I'm doing a MA (History), and I will mention it now and then, and so I will briefly explain it for you here so that I never have to do it again.

This is the one-sentence blurb I tell anyone who asks what I'm writing my thesis on: "British attitudes to Soviet Russia in the 1930s."

This is what I continue with if they express interest: I'm looking at how both pro-Soviet and anti-Soviet worldviews in Britain dealt in the public domain with the challenge of the Soviet Union in this period and with challenges to the Soviet Union. How they justified taking their individual stances while facing threats to their positions; how they developed coping strategies while under attack.

I'm completely bored by political or diplomatic history so this is very much a social/cultural history. I look at newspapers, books, novels and Mass Observation.

For some of the slightly funny things I've come across in the course of my research, check out my series of uncited excerpts.

If you're interested in further reading, I would recommend Malcolm Muggeridge's The Thirties for a readable, opinionated, well-written summary of the themes of the decade in the UK. And anything written by George Orwell. David Caute's The Fellow-Travellers is a good read, if you want something written by an historian, but be aware that he exaggerates many things.