From Whisky to Nelson by Way of Brussels Sprouts: The Contribution of Michael Moss (1947-2021)

This chapter commemorates Michael’s contribution to archival theory by drawing together a selection of his most important publications in the field. Michael’s early work in salvaging business archives laid the foundations of his profound understanding of the role of archives in facilitating transparent and accountable governance, and of his critique of those governments and corporations that sought to short-circuit these requirements, whether through government by sofa or managing pandemics by WhatsApp. Michael recognised and revelled in the interdisciplinary potential of archives. Issues of inadequate or post-hoc record keeping have been a recurrent theme of governance during the past thirty or forty years, whether in cold case investigations of cases arising from the civil war in Ulster; in the inquiry into the disaster at the Hillsborough football stadium; or, more recently, with the rise of post-truth, a development that fascinated Michael and where he felt ‘archivistics’ had a major contribution to make.