Linda McDowell is a Professor in the University of Oxford, a Fellow of St John's College and an honorary fellow of the Gender Institute at the London School of Economics. She is well-known for her detailed case studies of changing labour market conditions in contemporary Britain, including working in the City of London after 'Big Bang' (Capital Culture: gender at work in the City 1997) and life for unskilled young men in bottom end service jobs (Redundant Masculinities? 2003). Here she turns her analytic eye on the recent past, drawing on many hours of recorded interviews with elderly women.

'[McDowell] handles her sometimes dramatic, sometimes discomforting, and always interesting material with skill and subtlety. The result is a terrific book. While very difficult to put down, it is no easy read. I confess in places I was moved to tears.' - Jane Humphries, Feminist Economics

• Preface, List of Illustrations, 1 Introduction: Looking Back to the 1940s and 1950s, 2 Thinking Through Gender: Theorising Migration, Memory and Identity, 3 Disciplining Bodies: Exile and Involuntary Labour, 4 Life in the Camps: From Foreign Workers to Displaced Persons, 5 Becoming EVWs: From Displaced Persons to Economic Migrants, 6 Survival Strategies: Women’s Dual Roles in Post-War Britain, 7 Place, Locality and Gendered Local Cultures, 8 Yearning for ‘Home’: Narratives of Belonging and Imagined Community, 9 Conclusions: Memory, Identity and Translation, Bibliography, Index

Linda McDowell is a Professor in the University of Oxford, a Fellow of St John's College and an honorary fellow of the Gender Institute at the London School of Economics. She is well-known for her detailed case studies of changing labour market conditions in contemporary Britain, including working in the City of London after 'Big Bang' (Capital Culture: gender at work in the City 1997) and life for unskilled young men in bottom end service jobs (Redundant Masculinities? 2003). Here she turns her analytic eye on the recent past, drawing on many hours of recorded interviews with elderly women.

'[McDowell] handles her sometimes dramatic, sometimes discomforting, and always interesting material with skill and subtlety. The result is a terrific book. While very difficult to put down, it is no easy read. I confess in places I was moved to tears.' - Jane Humphries, Feminist Economics

• Preface, List of Illustrations, 1 Introduction: Looking Back to the 1940s and 1950s, 2 Thinking Through Gender: Theorising Migration, Memory and Identity, 3 Disciplining Bodies: Exile and Involuntary Labour, 4 Life in the Camps: From Foreign Workers to Displaced Persons, 5 Becoming EVWs: From Displaced Persons to Economic Migrants, 6 Survival Strategies: Women’s Dual Roles in Post-War Britain, 7 Place, Locality and Gendered Local Cultures, 8 Yearning for ‘Home’: Narratives of Belonging and Imagined Community, 9 Conclusions: Memory, Identity and Translation, Bibliography, Index

Linda McDowell is a Professor in the University of Oxford, a Fellow of St John's College and an honorary fellow of the Gender Institute at the London School of Economics. She is well-known for her detailed case studies of changing labour market conditions in contemporary Britain, including working in the City of London after 'Big Bang' (Capital Culture: gender at work in the City 1997) and life for unskilled young men in bottom end service jobs (Redundant Masculinities? 2003). Here she turns her analytic eye on the recent past, drawing on many hours of recorded interviews with elderly women.

'[McDowell] handles her sometimes dramatic, sometimes discomforting, and always interesting material with skill and subtlety. The result is a terrific book. While very difficult to put down, it is no easy read. I confess in places I was moved to tears.' - Jane Humphries, Feminist Economics

• Preface, List of Illustrations, 1 Introduction: Looking Back to the 1940s and 1950s, 2 Thinking Through Gender: Theorising Migration, Memory and Identity, 3 Disciplining Bodies: Exile and Involuntary Labour, 4 Life in the Camps: From Foreign Workers to Displaced Persons, 5 Becoming EVWs: From Displaced Persons to Economic Migrants, 6 Survival Strategies: Women’s Dual Roles in Post-War Britain, 7 Place, Locality and Gendered Local Cultures, 8 Yearning for ‘Home’: Narratives of Belonging and Imagined Community, 9 Conclusions: Memory, Identity and Translation, Bibliography, Index