Britain 1780-1945: Reforming Society

Britain 1780-1945: Reforming Society develops the ideas and chronological scope that I put forward in my earlier studies of Britain’s social and economic development during the late-eighteenth, nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries The result is a new history of British society between 1780 and 1945. I have taken the opportunity of extending the chronological limits of the book from 1914 to 1945 and have radically restructured my earlier work rewriting each chapter to take account of recent thinking in an attempt to make it less Anglo-centred, white and male in character. The result is an examination of issues ignored in my earlier work, for instance, the ways in which poor relief operated differently in England, Scotland and Ireland and the question of disability. The book begins by examining the critical developments in the transformation of Britain’s government, its urbanisation and the problems of housing, the revolution in how people worked and the problems posed by regulation and the problems of the public’s health. It then moves on to look at poverty and the state and the nature of voluntary action and the development of a national system of education. The final chapters consider crime, punishment and policing.