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The Changing Nature of Happiness: An in-depth study of a town in North West England 1938-2016

Preface by Professor Sir Cary Cooper; Edited by Sandie McHugh

Chapters by Jerome Carson, Martin Guha, John Haworth, Sandie McHugh, Robert Snape, Matthew Watson & Linda Withey

 

Published in Pivot by Palgrave Macmillan, December 2017 (e book £35.99, hardcover £44.99) ISBN 978-3-319-65651-9

 

 

What is happiness?

This book examines data collected in Bolton by Mass Observation in 1938 and by the University and The Bolton News in 2014. It covers the theory and philosophy of happiness, its close association with enjoyment and leisure and gives an insight into children’s experiences.

 

How is happiness measured and how can it be enhanced? The two data sets from one town 76 years apart, give a unique opportunity to compare and contrast ordinary people’s perceptions of the nature of happiness in very different economic and social conditions.

 

Professor Kevin Gournay CBE Emeritus Professor, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience: Kings College: London

This scholarly, but highly readable book demonstrates that we pay insufficient attention to Happiness. This book will

provide professionals and the general public, on one hand with serious insights into such an important topic, but on the other hand offers a great antidote to the gloom and doom that seems to be all around us.

 

Samuel M.Y. Ho, Professor of Psychology, Department of Applied Social Sciences Associate Provost (Institutional Initiatives), City University of Hong Kong

This book takes readers to a journey of happiness starting from 1938 to the present time. Read this book – and learn to find happiness in your own life.

 

Claire Langhamer, Professor of Modern British History, University of Sussex, UK

In 1938 the social investigative organization, Mass Observation, asked the people of Bolton 'What makes you happy'. Nearly 80 years later Boltonians were again asked this question. Using the results of both surveys, this excellent collection of essays explains what changed between these years and what has stayed the same. It will be welcomed by scholars across disciplines as an expert intervention in the ongoing happiness debate and as an enlightening account of life in Mass Observation's 'Worktown'.

 

Robert A. Stebbins, FRSC Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology, University of Calgary, Canada.

A community study of happiness is long overdue, and equally rare, a study with an eye to its historical unfolding. This fine work by McHugh and her colleagues helps close this gap.'

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