| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 330 words from this article are provided below; about 568 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Europe: Early Modern and Modern

James Hinton. Women, Social Leadership, and the Second World War: Continuities of Class. New York: Oxford University Press. 2002. Pp. ix, 267.

"We are acting in the way of smoothing out difficulties," Lady Stella Reading, founder and lifetime leader of the English Women's Voluntary Service (WVS), explained disarmingly in 1938 (p. 93). But, as this lively and engaging book demonstrates, the WVS accomplished far more: James Hinton offers good evidence that, if one looks at women as well as men, one finds continuities of efficacious political paternalism and class hierarchy throughout interwar England and into the postwar period, not the straightforward demise of middle-class authority usually depicted. Hinton makes his case through a close study of the WVS from its founding in the 1930s through its disintegration in the 1960s. The first part of the book demonstrates the organization's triumphant rise to success in the interwar and especially the wartime years (boasting at its peak one million members) across a range of local settings; the second reveals its surprising tenacity in the years following the war, despite "democratization" under the Labour government, the professionalization of social services, and even the Conservatives' abandonment of the WVS for its avowed nonpartisanship. The book is compelling in its assertions of the ambivalent nature of the processes of democratization and the decline of paternalistic, middle-class control in these years. Viewed through the activities of women, the presumed middle-class retreat from such a leadership role socially and politically looks far less clear cut, above all in big cities where a Labour ascendancy suggested the most rapid and thorough political transformation. This altered periodization recasts the role of both wars and the significance of the rise of Labour to power for the restructuring of English society, a notable revision of our understanding of twentieth-century English history. It also contributes to a nuanced study of some forms of "feminine politics" even after suffrage rendered women "equal citizens."

. . .

There are about 568 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.