Peter Brereton Townsend 1928–2009

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
HOWARD GLENNERSTER
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Older People ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Disabled People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University

Peter Townsend was a towering figure in the intellectual history of social policy in the twentieth century. He was both a sociologist and a tireless campaigner for poor and disabled people, who opened up new areas of study in sociology: inequalities suffered by older people and those with disabilities. Townsend was elected to the British Academy in 2004 and was a key member of the Black Review in the late 1970s. He was a Founding Professor at the University of Essex and later held professorships at Bristol and New York universities and the LSE. Obituary by Howard Glennerster FBA.

Welfare and Social Policy in Britain Since 1870

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Community Action ◽  
Grass Roots ◽  
University Of Oxford ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Liberalism ◽  
The University ◽  
The Welfare State

This collection of twelve essays reviews the history of welfare in Britain over the past 150 years, focusing on the ideas that have shaped the development of British social policy and on the thinkers who have inspired and also contested the welfare state. It thereby constructs an intellectual history of British welfare since the concept first emerged at the end of the nineteenth century. The essays divide into four sections. The first considers the transition from laissez-faire to social liberalism from the 1870s and the enduring impact of late Victorian philosophical idealism on the development of the welfare state. The second section is devoted to the concept of ‘planning’ which was at the heart of social policy and its implementation in the mid-twentieth century, but which has subsequently fallen out of favour. A third section examines the intellectual debate over the welfare state since its creation in the 1940s. A final section examines social policy and its implementation more recently, both at grass-roots level in a study of community action in west London in the districts made infamous by the fire at Grenfell Tower in 2017, and at a systemic level where different models of welfare provision are shown to be in uneasy co-existence today. The collection is a tribute to Jose Harris, emeritus professor of history in the University of Oxford and a pioneer of the intellectual history of social policy. Taken together these essays conduct the reader through the key phases and debates in the history of British welfare.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Television Film ◽  
Popular Image

The introductory chapter discusses the popular image of the ‘Romantic mad poet’ in television, film, theatre, fiction, the history of literary criticism, and the intellectual history of the twentieth century and its countercultures, including anti-psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Existing literary-historical work on related topics is assessed, before the introduction goes on to suggest why some problems or difficulties in writing about this subject might be productive for further cultural history. The introduction also considers at length the legacy of Michel Foucault’s Folie et Déraison (1961), and the continued viability of Foucauldian methods and concepts for examining literary-cultural representations of madness after the half-century of critiques and controversies following that book’s publication. Methodological discussion both draws on and critiques the models of historical sociology used by George Becker and Sander L. Gilman to discuss genius, madness, deviance, and stereotype in the nineteenth century. A note on terminology concludes the introduction.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Harris
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New York City ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
George Balanchine ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Arts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Lincoln Center

The Conclusion briefly examines the current state of the New York City Ballet under the auspices of industrial billionaire David H. Koch at Lincoln Center. In so doing, it to introduces a series of questions, warranting still more exploration, about the rapid and profound evolution of the structure, funding, and role of the arts in America through the course of the twentieth century. It revisits the historiographical problem that drives Making Ballet American: the narrative that George Balanchine was the sole creative genius who finally created an “American” ballet. In contrast to that hagiography, the Conclusion reiterates the book’s major contribution: illuminating the historical construction of our received idea of American neoclassical ballet within a specific set of social, political, and cultural circumstances. The Conclusion stresses that the history of American neoclassicism must be seen as a complex narrative involving several authors and discourses and crossing national and disciplinary borders: a history in which Balanchine was not the driving force, but rather the outcome.

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