Publisher's Synopsis
An indispensable reference work for librarians, historians and social scientists seeking information on the archive sources for British history, politics and society since 1945. The product of a major research project that has been under way since October 1990 at the British Library of Political and Economic Science (for practical purposes a part of the London School of Economics). Its aim was to locate the whereabouts of non-governmental archives in order to provide essential source material for the contemporary historian.;The results are being published in two parallel volumes. This, the first of them, provides compact but invaluable information about the records of all the significant organisations, institutions and societies that have been active and influential in British politics and public life since 1945. (The second volume. now in preparation for publication in Spring 1994, will deal with the records of individuals.;The two volumes are separate and self-sufficient, but anyone interested in the one is likely to be interested in the other. Each entry gives a brief account of the history and aims of the organisation, a survey of the records which survive and notes on their location and availability.;Provides a compact guide of the records of over one thousand organisations which range from the archives of the great political parties and national organisations like the TUC, to pressure groups which are (or were) active in a multitude of causes as diverse as nuclear disarmament, European unification, the women's movement, broadcasting and a whole range of political, welfare, social and religious issues. All aspects of postwar British life that have had a political dimension are here in force.;An irreplaceable vade mecum for the individual professional researcher in a range of disciplines, not just a research tool crammed with labour-saving information (often unfindable elsewhere) about the whereabouts of archives and their contents; it is also (because of the historical information it offers on the organisations concerned) a mine of incidental and fascinating material about the shape, character and concerns of postwar Britain.
