Kropotkin Read And The Intellectual History of British Anarchism

When Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina savagely caned Senator Charles Sumner Massachusetts on the floor of the U.S. Senate on May 21, 1856, southerners viewed the attack as a triumphant affirmation of southern chivalry, northerners as a confirmation of southern barbarity. Public opinion was similarly divided nearly three-and-a-half years later after abolitionist John Brown's raid on the Federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, with northerners crowning John Brown as a martyr to the cause of freedom as southerners excoriated him as a consciousness fanatic.

The history of social policy is emerging as an area of growing interest to both students and researchers. This topical book charts the period from the 1830s to the present day, providing a fresh analysis of the relationship between social theory and social policy in the UK. Different ideas about the means and aims of social policy suggested by Individualists, Idealists, and Fabian Socialists are examined in depth and their impacts on the world of social policy reassessed. Special consideration is given to the history of ideas in relation to informal care and voluntary action, as well as action by the state. An Intellectual History of British Social Policy provides a valuable framework that exposes many of the assumptions about the nature of welfare and its future direction while reconsidering and challenging many long-held beliefs about the evolution of social policy.