The Age of Noise in Britain

Abstract

Early twentieth-century Britons thought that they were living in the “age of noise,” sensing the historical changes going on around them as a series of disturbing shifts in the sonic atmosphere. From motorcar engines and wireless loudspeakers to the terrifying interruptions of mechanized warfare, the feeling of living in topsy-turvy times arrived via the ear. Yet historians have not listened to the sounds of early twentieth-century Britain nor unravelled what it meant to live in an “age of noise”. This book turns a critical ear to the “ways of hearing” operating in Britain between 1914 and 1945 and argues that attempts to shape encounters with everyday sound were expressive of hopes and fears for modernity. Competing expert groups – doctors, psychologists, planners, mystics, even – thought differently about how best to attune the individual hearing self to the sounding social body in modernity. Examining noise abatement campaigns, scientific as well as enchanted interventions in the everyday sonic environment, and attempts to manage the auditory culture of total war, the book offers the first auditory history of modern Britain.