Sinners? Scroungers? Saints? is the first book to describe the real lives of unmarried mothers, and attitudes towards them, in England from the First World War to the present day. Pat Thane and Tanya Evans use biographies and memoirs, as well as archives and official sources, to challenge stereotypes of the mothers as desolate women, rejected by society and by their families, until social attitudes were transformed in the 'permissive' 1960s. They demonstrate the diversity of their lives, their social backgrounds, and how often they were supported by their families, neighbours, and...

The continuing under-representation of women in political and public life remains a matter of concern across a wide range of countries, including the UK and Ireland. Within the UK it is a topical issue as political parties currently debate strategies, often controversial, which will increase women's representation. At the same time, devolution has ushered in significant change in the level of women's representation in Scotland and Wales and improved representation for women in Northern Ireland. That such increases in women's representation in political institutions have been slow in coming is...

Philosophers and social theorists have long debated what equality is. This book probes what this means for both those at the centre and on the margins of society.

This book examines a period which was the fulcrum around which postwar British history moved. In popular discourse the 1970s is commonly characterized as a dismal decade of economic and political failure from which the country was apparently rescued by Thatcherism. The editors of this volume argue that this is both simplistic and a barrier to understanding a period of fundamental importance in the trajectory of postwar British history. Most notably, it was a decade of extraordinary ferment in ideas. Out of the battles waged around these ideas emerged the Britain of the late-twentieth century....