Recent revelations of child abuse have highlighted the need for understanding the historical background to current attitudes towards child health and welfare. In the Name of the Child explores a variety of professional, social, political and cultural constructions of the child in the decades around the First World War. It describes how medical and welfare initiatives in the name of the child were shaped and how changes in medical and welfare provisions were closely allied to political and ideological interests.

About the Author
Roger Cooter is Senior Research Officer at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Manchester, and one of the editors of Social History of Medicine. The author of The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science (1984), Phrenology in the British Isles (1989), and Surgery and Society in Peace and War, 1880- 1948 (1993). He has also edited Studies in the History of Alternative Medicine (1988).

Reviews

'All essays are invaluable and provide a rich and informative source not only for those working on childhood and in the field of health and welfare, but also for those interested in wider questions about the nature of society and its cultural, political, and social relationships.' - Social History of Medicine

'In short, the best essays in this collection offer a model of scholarship that grounds the insights of cultrual studies in attention to specific group, institutional, and professional dynamics. And in doing so, they make a needed and provocative contribution to the histories both of medicine and of child welfare.' - Bulletin of the History of Medicine

' [An] oustandingly rich and serious collection of essays.' - Sociology of Health and Illness

Book Information
ISBN 9780415057431
Author Roger Cooter
Format Hardback
Page Count 304
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 544g