Working Men’s Bodies

John Field is a Professor in the School of Education, University of Stirling, Scotland

This is a fascinating, well-written and thoughtful study.‘Working Men's Bodies: Work Camps in Britain, 1880-1940 is an exhaustive exploration of the role of work camps and camp movements in modern British history…The sheer scope of John Field’s analysis is impressive…It is an important contribution to shared understandings of how bodies are shaped and managed through public discourse and policy interventions. Working Men’s Bodies will therefore also appeal to readers interested in sociology, labor policy, and the gendered nature of work.’Abbas, Carleton University, H-Disability July 2016

• 1. Colonising the land2. ‘We work amongst the lowest stratum of life’: the early labour colonies3. Labour colonies and public health4. Alternative living in the English countryside: utopian colonies5. ‘The landless man to the manless land’: labour colonies and the Empire6. ‘Save our young people from a kind of dry rot’: compulsion and the Labour government, 1929–19317. Incremental growth: Instructional Centres under the National Government 8. ‘Light green uniforms, white apron and caps’: training unemployed women 9. Camps as social service and social movement10. ‘Down with the Concentration Camps!’ Opposition and protestConclusion – Understanding work camps: memory and contextIndex