The Age of the Gas Mask
How British Civilians Faced the Terrors of Total War

Uncovers how a material object – the civilian gas mask – can reveal the power and limits of the modern state facing total war.

Susan R. Grayzel (Author)

9781108491273, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 August 2022

288 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2 cm, 0.55 kg

'The Age of the Gas Mask is an authoritative and richly textured history of a material object and its immediate social world. Grayzel's archival work and cultural sensitivity are exemplary.' Daniel Schuster, Munitions of The Mind

The First World War introduced the widespread use of lethal chemical weapons. In its aftermath, the British government, like that of many states, had to prepare civilians to confront such weapons in a future war. Over the course of the interwar period, it developed individual anti-gas protection as a cornerstone of civil defence. Susan R. Grayzel traces the fascinating history of one object – the civilian gas mask – through the years 1915–1945 and, in so doing, reveals the reach of modern, total war and the limits of the state trying to safeguard civilian life in an extensive empire. Drawing on records from Britain's Colonial, Foreign, War and Home Offices and other archives alongside newspapers, journals, personal accounts and cultural sources, she connects the histories of the First and Second World Wars, combatants and civilians, men and women, metropole and colony, illuminating how new technologies of warfare shaped culture, politics, and society.

1. Introduction
2. Inventing an object for modern conflict: The gas mask in war and peace, 1915–1929
3. Defending civilians: Developing the gas mask in Britain and its empire, c. 1930–1936
4. Unveiling the gas mask: Designs and dissent, 1936–1938
5. Curating the good citizen: The gas mask goes to war, 1939–1941
6. Facing wartime: The civilian gas mask's rise and fall, 1941–1945
7. Conclusion
Epilogue: Five brief ways of looking at a gas mask.

Subject Areas: Warfare & defence [JW], Military history [HBW], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], British & Irish history [HBJD1]