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.

Volume Two explores the questions of social structure, social mobility and class relations. Family and household, the social implications of demographic change, jobs, working and housing conditions, and family relations were all crucial elements in the shaping of group consciousness; these form the main themes of this volume. With chapters on nutrition, patterns of food and drink consumption and leisure activities, a comprehensive overview is built up on the way the social order has been changed.

The intensive study of particular localities and communities characterizes much recent work in social history. Volume One draws on this approach to present a series of chapters on the social history of various regions of the British Isles.