Dangerous Amusements: Leisure, the Young Working Class and Urban Space in Britain, c. 1870-1939. By Laura Harrison

Abstract

The central premise of Dangerous Amusements is that a spatial analysis must underpin our historical understanding of youth culture. By taking a distinctively geographic approach, this book thus makes a convincing claim, if unnamed, for what has previously been termed the ‘urban variable’: the argument that cities were not just passive containers but actively reshaped everyday life. Harrison still stresses the importance of ‘agency’ in the interaction of young people with the physical environment, however. Urban space, both public and interstitial, could be occupied or contested, and invested with cultural meanings that did not necessarily map onto the discourse propagated by middle-class associations and governmental authorities. In tune with other scholars, she takes a broad definition of youth; one that is not strictly limited by age but rather the formative experiences—leaving school, employment, courting—that ended with marriage and domesticity. The result is a rich and detailed study of the multitude of ways that young people made the streets of the city their own, and how society reacted to their presence.