The Solidarities of Strangers by Lynn Hollen Lees
The Solidarities of Strangers is a study of English policies toward the poor from the seventeenth century to the present that combines individual stories with official actions. Lynn Lees shows how clients as well as officials negotiated welfare settlements. Cultural definitions of entitlement, rather than available resources, determined amounts and beneficiaries. Indeed, industrialization and growing wealth went along with restricted payments to the needy, while universal allowances and insurance systems expanded as the economy faltered and world wars crippled budgets and drained resources. Although the English poor laws were a 'residualist' system, aiding the destitute when neither family nor charities covered needs, they went through cycles of generosity and meanness that affected men and women unequally. The long-term history of welfare in England and Wales has not been a story of continued progress and improvement but one determined by continually changing attitudes toward poverty.
'Lynn Hollen Lee's book puts flesh on the dry bones of poor law administration by citing human experiences … derived from a largely untapped wealth of local records, autobiographies and other personal testimony … this is a particularly timely book … [and] is of great value in making sense of the wide range of poor law research in recent years and in focusing on the human experience of public relief' The Times Literary Supplement
Lees, Lynn Hollen: - Lynn Hollen Lees is co-director of the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research centers on European cities, their social organization, and their welfare institutions, with recent publications including Global Society: The World since 1900 (2013), with Pamela K. Crossley and John W. Servos. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Rotary Foundation. She has also spent time as an exchange professor at University College London, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and the University of Diponegoro in Indonesia.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780521030663 |
| ISBN 10 | 0521030668 |
| Title | The Solidarities of Strangers |
| Author | Lynn Hollen Lees |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Year published | 2007-01-18 |
| Number of pages | 392 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |