Behind Closed Doors
With a keen eye for the juicy anecdote, Thévoz tells the fascinating and entertaining story of the rise, decline and resurgence of London's private members' clubs, from the late-eighteenth century to the present day. In doing so he looks at cultural and political developments beyond the clubs, revealing how while the clubs may have been products of their city and country, they also exerted significant influence on London, Britain and places far beyond.

This is a chronicle, as informative as it is entertaining, of the ups and downs of London clubland, and how it had an impact on parts of the world far from London. It is packed with amusing anecdotes and illustrative examples of the growth of this quirky, unique institution, which grew to spread around the world. London, though, with its four hundred clubs, was always at its heart.

Thévoz reveals how everything we might have thought we knew about these clubs is wrong. They may have started out as white, male, aristocratic watering holes - but that's only part of the story. All sections of society built their own clubs and lived their lives there: highbrow and lowbrow; women and men; working-class, middle-class and upper-class; international and British. The club has been central to a distinctively British form of leisure over more than three centuries.

Behind Closed Doors is a distillation of a decade of research and writing on London clubs, based on exclusive behind-the-scenes access to archives and proceedings, as well as a love of gossip and scandal.

"1141004106"
Behind Closed Doors
With a keen eye for the juicy anecdote, Thévoz tells the fascinating and entertaining story of the rise, decline and resurgence of London's private members' clubs, from the late-eighteenth century to the present day. In doing so he looks at cultural and political developments beyond the clubs, revealing how while the clubs may have been products of their city and country, they also exerted significant influence on London, Britain and places far beyond.

This is a chronicle, as informative as it is entertaining, of the ups and downs of London clubland, and how it had an impact on parts of the world far from London. It is packed with amusing anecdotes and illustrative examples of the growth of this quirky, unique institution, which grew to spread around the world. London, though, with its four hundred clubs, was always at its heart.

Thévoz reveals how everything we might have thought we knew about these clubs is wrong. They may have started out as white, male, aristocratic watering holes - but that's only part of the story. All sections of society built their own clubs and lived their lives there: highbrow and lowbrow; women and men; working-class, middle-class and upper-class; international and British. The club has been central to a distinctively British form of leisure over more than three centuries.

Behind Closed Doors is a distillation of a decade of research and writing on London clubs, based on exclusive behind-the-scenes access to archives and proceedings, as well as a love of gossip and scandal.

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Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors

by Seth Alexander Thevoz
Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors

by Seth Alexander Thevoz

Paperback

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Overview

With a keen eye for the juicy anecdote, Thévoz tells the fascinating and entertaining story of the rise, decline and resurgence of London's private members' clubs, from the late-eighteenth century to the present day. In doing so he looks at cultural and political developments beyond the clubs, revealing how while the clubs may have been products of their city and country, they also exerted significant influence on London, Britain and places far beyond.

This is a chronicle, as informative as it is entertaining, of the ups and downs of London clubland, and how it had an impact on parts of the world far from London. It is packed with amusing anecdotes and illustrative examples of the growth of this quirky, unique institution, which grew to spread around the world. London, though, with its four hundred clubs, was always at its heart.

Thévoz reveals how everything we might have thought we knew about these clubs is wrong. They may have started out as white, male, aristocratic watering holes - but that's only part of the story. All sections of society built their own clubs and lived their lives there: highbrow and lowbrow; women and men; working-class, middle-class and upper-class; international and British. The club has been central to a distinctively British form of leisure over more than three centuries.

Behind Closed Doors is a distillation of a decade of research and writing on London clubs, based on exclusive behind-the-scenes access to archives and proceedings, as well as a love of gossip and scandal.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781472146489
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Publication date: 11/12/2024
Pages: 304
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

Dr Seth Alexander Thévoz is a freelance historian and journalist. He holds degrees from the Universities of Cambridge, London and Warwick, and is a former research associate of the History of Parliament Trust and Nuffield College, Oxford. He has variously been shortlisted for the Whitfield Prize for his first book, Club Government, and a British Journalism Award for his investigative work with openDemocracy. Since 2013, he has been Librarian of the National Liberal Club in London. He has been known to contribute to Private Eye in some capacity or another, allegedly.
http://www.sethalexanderthevoz.com/

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Prologue: What a club looks like 7

Chapter 1 Early beginnings - scandal, coffee and chocolate (1690-1774) 25

Chapter 2 The Georgian clubs - the 'aristocratic phase' and the arrival of the middle classes (1774-1820) 39

Chapter 3 Women, and the rivals to clubs (1770-1865) 55

Chapter 4 Reform or revolution? (1820-1860) 65

Chapter 5 The rise and rise of the working men's clubs (1858-1920) 83

Chapter 6 Clubonomics (1860-1900) 95

Chapter 7 Clubs and empires (1827-1913) 123

Chapter 8 Clubs and race (1850-1914) 145

Chapter 9 Women in clubs (1840-1920) 157

Chapter 10 Clubs, bisexuality and homosexuality (1830-1935) 171

Chapter 11 The Great War and its shadow (1913-1939) 187

Chapter 12 Clubs at war - the Second World War (1939-1945) 205

Chapter 13 Stagnation and seediness (1945-1960) 217

Chapter 14 The Satire Boom, and the 1960s (1960-1969) 239

Chapter 15 Asset strippers and confidence tricksters (1960-1980) 255

Chapter 16 The strange rebirth of Clubland (1985-2022) 281

Epilogue 305

Acknowledgements 309

Notes 313

Bibliography 329

Index 365

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