Description
The story of how and why Britain became a nation of people paying to find love in the decades before the rise of Internet dating.
About the Author
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.
Reviews
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. * The Telegraph *
This volume explores an important subculture of heterosexual relationships in late 20th-century Britain ... The author explores the frequently painful subjectivities of singleness during this period and excels at integrating an enormous amount of bibliographical material into her analysis ...[This book] illuminates a neglected area of gender studies in Britain. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals. * CHOICE *
The book [is] a wonderfully rich resource for academics, and it is also of great interest to the informed general reader. * Journal of British Studies *
Seeking Love in Modern Britain is many books at once: a history of singlehood; a study of the transformation of matchmaking from the lonely hearts era to Internet dating; an analysis of the deep enmeshment of intimacy with consumer culture. It will quickly become compulsory reading for anyone - scholars and general readers -- interested in understanding the state of modern love and sexuality. * Eva Illouz, Professor of Sociology, Hebrew University, Israel *
This is an empirically rich history of the modern 'single'. Revealing the developing tensions between pragmatism and feeling - or, as Strimpel rather beautifully puts it, 'the methodical and the magical' - in a changing world and pointing to the confusions, contradictions and impossibilities of modern dating, this is interdisciplinary work at its best. * Claire Langhamer, Professor of Modern British History, University of Sussex, UK *
An enthralling, serious and deeply-researched account of singleness in contemporary Britain. * Harry Cocks, Associate Professor of British History, University of Nottingham, UK *
The book is a lively account of mediated courtship that manages to seamlessly marry complex theoretical frameworks ... Strimpel's book is welcome reading to scholars of gender and sexuality, in addition to those interested in the social and cultural history of late-twentieth-century Britain more broadly. * European Review of History *
Book Information
ISBN 9781350095915
Author Dr Zoe Strimpel
Format Hardback
Page Count 240
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Weight(grams) 517g