The English teacher today works in an area whose very identity as a subject for study in secondary schools is open to doubt. Increasingly, it is becoming clear that the values and beliefs which have formed traditional English tend to devalue, or at least to exclude the experience of most students. At the same time, the tools of critical theory have become, in the context of higher education, the means to make the subject still more rarefied and more distant from everyday experience. In this exploration, Nick Peim, himself a practising English teacher, shows how the insights of discourse...

A systematic comparison of key differences and similarities in the experience of black people in the US and England amidst racial hostility. The author argues for an approach to combatting this built on shared racial identities.

What have been the roles of charities and the state in supporting medical provision? These are issues of major relevance, as the assumptions and practices of the welfare state are increasingly thrown into doubt. This title offers a broad perspective on the relationship between charity and medicine in Western Europe, up to the advent of welfare states in the 20th century.

This volume collates a collection of essays, based on original research, which focus on the history of nutrition science in Britain. Each chapter considers a different episode in the development and application of nutritional knowledge during the 20th century. The topics covered include: the chewing cult of Horace Fletcher; dietetic education; the popularization of milk; the Dunn Nutritional Laboratory; and wartime involvement in policy making. The selection of essays provide insights into the social processes involved in the production and application of scientific knowledge of nutrition....

The care of the needy and the sick is delivered by various groups including immediate family, the wider community, religious organisations and the State funded institutions. The Locus of Care provides an historical perspective on welfare detailing who carers were in the past, where care was provided, and how far the boundary between family and state or informal and organised institutions have changed over time.
Eleven international contributors provide a wide-ranging examination of themes, such as child care, mental health, and provision for the elderly and question the idea that...

The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the attention paid by social scientists to environmental issues, and a gradual acknowledgement, in the wider community, of the role of social science in the public debate on sustainability. At the same time, the concept of culture', once the property of anthropologists has gained wide currency among social scientist. These trends have taken place against a growing perception, among specialist and public, of the global nature of contemporary issues. This book shows how an understanding of culture can throw light on the way environmental issues...

The problem of the poor grew in the early modern period as populations rose dramatically and created many extra pressures on the state. In Northern Europe, cities were going through a period of rapid growth and central and local administrations saw considerable expansion. This volume provides an outline of the developments in health care and poor relief in the economically important regions of Northern Europe in this period when urban poverty became a generally recognized problem for both magistracies and governments. With contributions from international scholars in the field, including...

In this pamphlet Margaret Shennan surveys the rise of Prussia from the early seventeenth century to 1740, highlighting and evaluating the role of its rulers, in particular of Frederick William I, the Great Elector, and his two successors. The author takes account of:
* international relations
* social and economic structures
* domestic pressures
* ethical and cultural influences
* idiosyncratic personalities
* terrain and boundaries.

Despite the recent upsurge in interest in alternative medicine and unorthodox healers, Illness and Healing Alternatives in Western Europe is the first book to focus closely on the relationship between belief, culture, and healing in the past. In essays on France, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and England, from the sixteenth century to the present day, the authors draw on a broad range of material, from studies of demonologists and reports of asylum doctors, to church archives and oral evidence.

Though Foucault is now widely taught in universities, his writings are notoriously difficult. Reassessing Foucault critically examines the implications of his work for students and researchers in a wide range of areas in the social and human sciences.
Focusing on the social history of medicine, successive chapters deal with his historiographical, methodological and philosophical writings, his ideas about prisons, hospitals, madness and disease, and his thinking about the body.
The book also suggests ways in which Foucault's influence will continue to dominate cultural history...