The Whig interpretation of history, a relentlessly progressive account of the emergence of our parliamentary system, has long been out of fashion when it comes to politics. But histories of social policy are all too often complacent accounts of ‘the development’ or ‘evolution’ of state provision.
This excellent book breaks with that tradition by reminding us of what was lost as the conventional welfare state expanded. A vigorous network of working-class institutions ranging from friendly societies to dissenting chapels was bulldozed out of the way as the state moved in.
E. G. West powerfully showed how much schooling there was before Foster’s Education Act of 1870. David Green showed the extent of working-class friendly societies before Lloyd George introduced National Insurance. John Carey showed in The Intellectuals and the Masses just how much modernist writers in the 20th century seem to have hated the bulk of their compatriots.
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