ABSTRACT
It is easy to draw some quick sketches of the differences between the 1880s and the late 1930s. This was when modernity seemed to arrive in a rush. The 1880s were the start of a Second Industrial Revolution, with a massive influx of immigrants into London, the expansion of the British Empire into Africa, and the development of new chemical and manufacturing industries; skyscrapers rose in the United States, and the London Underground system expanded to link people across London. Mobility was enhanced for ordinary people by motor buses and trains as well as the London tube. Roads were covered in tar, and after World War I, faster cars began to use them. By the end of the 1930s, Britain had experienced severe boom-and-bust economic conditions, political and social upheaval, the stirrings of youth culture, and consumer culture. The second war with Germany in twenty years would bring about another raft of technological and socioeconomic changes. The pace of change in society was accelerating, and this was true in the cultural and intellectual realm.
