Making-Up People

Making-Up People: Youth, Truth and Politics, 1st Edition, examines the divide between cultural assumptions about youth and the historical realities of their political participation. Judith Bessant explores how political figures, writers, and social scientists have constructed public images of young people while downplaying their civic activity.

Using a relational historical sociology framework, the text analyzes how social imaginaries have shaped representations of childhood and adolescence since the nineteenth century. It investigates the contradiction whereby young people are portrayed as cognitively and morally unprepared for governance, yet criticized by older generations for political apathy.

The volume documents that young people have organized across major political struggles since the French Revolution, challenging assumptions about youth passivity.