Mansell has given us an exhilarating and highly original way of understanding early twentieth century Britain. He ranges confidently across a dazzlingly wide terrain
attitudes towards neurasthenia, the occult thinking of Theosophists, technocrats designing quieter homes, those aghast at the sonic assaults of the wartime Blitz
and shows how noise was more than a symbol of modern life or the bane of the highly-strung. It was regarded by a whole gamut of experts and pseudo-experts as an irritating, mysterious, troubling force dramatically reshaping the relationship between the individual and society. The Age of Noise in Britain allows us to eavesdrop on this loud and disputatious period
indeed, to question our understanding of modernity itself. It is unsettling in the very best of ways.
David Hendy, author of Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening James Mansell's remarkably clear, wonderfully detailed, even occasionally droll examination of the sensing self in industrial modernity makes a substantial, important contribution to historical sound studies and British studies.
John M. Picker, author of Victorian Soundscapes In sum, Mansell's work successfully unlocks the sensory world of the past and demonstrates how one might decode the meanings of sound for those who experienced it.
Fides et Historia