List of Figures VII
Preface ix
1 Social Research and Documentary Sources 1
Evidence and data in social research 2
What are documents? 10
2 Assessing Documentary Sources 19
Authenticity: soundness and authorship 19
Credibility: sincerity and accuracy 22
Representativeness: survival and availability 24
Meaning: literal and interpretative understanding 28
3 The Use of Documents in Social Research 36
The search for King Arthur 38
Who wrote the Zinoviev letter? 43
The social meanings of suicide 48
Social research and the relativity of accounts 54
4 The Official Realm: Public and Private 59
The State, surveillance and secrecy 60
Official documents in the State 63
Official records in the private sphere 78
5 Administrative Routines and Situated Decisions 83
Conceptual instruments and administrative routines 84
Situated decisions 90
6 Explorations in Official Documents 96
Occupation, class and inequality 96
Class schemas and the problem of meaning 111
Measuring the class structure 117
The records of health, welfare and education 123
Business and industrial records 129
7 The Public Sphere and Mass Communication 136
Public opinion, the media and the audience 137
Images, content and meaning 143
Directories, almanacs and yearbooks 156
The annals of the rich and powerful 163
8 Personal Documents 173
Diaries, letters and autobiographies 174
Photographs and visual sources 185
Notes 198
Index 227
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