The Cambridge Social History of Britain 1750–1950, Volume 3 : Social Agencies and Institutions 3

"The final volume discusses the institutions that affected social conditions and influenced values and attitudes. Social policies were made for the most part by the comfortably off and those in power for the supposed good of the less fortunate. Contributors to this volume examine these initiatives with regard to, among others, the development of health care, philanthropy and the voluntary sector, the police and crime, professional associations and unions." Whilst in certain quarters it may be fashionable to suppose that there is no such thing as society historians, they have had no difficulty in finding their subject. The difficulty, rather, is that an outpouring of research and writing is hard for anyone but the specialist to keep up with the literature or grasp the overall picture. In these three volumes, as is the tradition in Cambridge Histories, a team of specialists has assembled the jigsaw of topical monographic research and presented an interpretation of the development of modern British society since 1750, from three perspectives: those of regional communities, the working and living environment, and social institutions. Each volume is self-contained, and each contribution, thematically defined, contains its own chronology of the period under review. Taken as a whole they offer an authoritative and comprehensive view of the manner and method of the shaping of society in the two centuries of unprecedented demographic and economic change The theme of this chapter is the manner in which Government influenced the lives of citizens of England and Wales, their behaviour and conditions of life according to which principles and with what effects. Now in paperback, a three volume thematic interpretation of the development of modern British society from 1750. v. 1. Regions and communities v. 2. People and their environment v. 3. Social agencies and institutions.