Assessing Audience Reactions to Winston Churchill’s Speeches

Abstract

This chapter offers a reflection on the archival-historical methodology underlying the book The Roar of The Lion: The Untold Story of Churchill’s World War II Speeches (2013). It reviews the sources available to assess contemporary reactions to Churchill’s oratory. These sources include the Ministry of Information’s Home Intelligence Reports, and the material gathered by the sociological research organisation Mass-Observation. The chapter offers guidance on how to apply the methodology to other periods/figures. Finally, it offers some reflections on the disciplinary divide between the humanities and the social sciences and the implications of this for rhetorical reception research.