The War Between and Beyond the Wars : A Social Biography of a London Childhood

This book explores a social biography of a London childhood growing up in a turbulent middle-class London household between World War I and World War II. Based on extensive interviews, the book weaves together how the world in which the child grew up was both created by and mirrors the social and political turmoil of her times, inviting readers to recognize the inseparability of our lives from their contexts. Central to the book’s theme are the contradictory and multifaceted ways in which personal and cultural denial, in the face of layers of violence, enables individuals and entire societies to simultaneously tolerate the intolerable as an act of self-preservation, while also perpetuating unspeakable sufferings. Questions are also explored as to the complex interplay between personal and collective memory, including memories of trauma and their ongoing roles in individual and collective identity construction and maintenance, as well as exploring pathways for individual and collective healing.