Product Description: The history of social policy is emerging as an area of growing interest to both students and researchers. This topical book charts the period from the 1830s to the present day, providing a fresh analysis of the relationship between social theory and social policy in the UK...read more

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was a major figure in the early development of sociology, famous for work which likened society to an organism and analysed it in evolutionary terms. In this context he was contributing to evolutionary theory before as well as after Darwin and argued consistently that society would be perfected through the operation of the principle that every man should be left free to do what he would as long as he did not interfere with another man's freedom.Spencer's work has been neglected in recent years, but its indirect influence lives on both in libertarian political thought and in the discipline of sociology itself particularly through the work of Durkheim who was heavily influenced by Spencer. This major set traces that influence from the reaction of Spencer's contemporaries to the present day. Contributions come from across the social science disciplines and are often taken from difficult to access contemporary sources.

Product Description: Social workers are called upon to perform their varied tasks in a wide range of social settings, often involving intensely intimate contact with, and intervention in, a person's private moral and social world. Offering insights into the lives and motives of social work service users, this text seeks to deomonstrate the practical relevance of sociological research at the end of the 20th century for good social work practice...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This book presents Spencer's classic attempt to expose the flaws in socialism and to assert political individualism as the best way to guarantee social progress. It will be of interest to both undergraduates and specialists in politics, political theory, social policy, sociology and history...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)