Seeking Love in Modern Britain

Zoe Strimpel is Research Fellow at the University of Sussex, UK. She is a flagship columnist for the Sunday Telegraph, having previously worked as a full-time writer for The Times and Lifestyle Editor for City AM. Dr Strimpel is the author of What the Hell Is He Thinking? All the Questions You Ever Asked About Men Answered (2010) and The Man Diet: One Woman’s Quest to End Bad Romance (2012). She has regularly appeared on BBC Breakfast, BBC Sunday Morning Live, Sky News, Radio 4 and Radio 5 Live, both as a historian of gender and relationships and to discuss responses to the #metoo campaign against sexual harassment.

5 stars ... An intelligent history of the dating industry between 1970 and 2000 – post sexual revolution and pre-internet – that makes you rethink the way we get what we want (or don’t). Be warned: this is a serious piece of social history and not written in layman’s language. Casual readers might find sections of it difficult to navigate, but I think it adds to the book’s charm. It’s like watching Love Island in the company of Michel Foucault.

• List of FiguresIntroduction1. Live Alone and Like It? Singleness in Late 20th-Century Britain2. The Matchmaking Industry, 1970-20003. Representations of the Dating Industry4. Mediated Daters and the Experience of MatchmakingConclusionBibliographyIndex