The Welfare State Generation: Women, Agency and Class in Britain since 1945

for a film each time it figures in the text. This repetition might simply be regarded as unnecessary, were it not for the fact that different years are often cited for the same production. Examples range from Tony Richardson’s Tom Jones, to Cliff Richard’s hit musical Summer Holiday, and Antonioni’s Blow-Up. Another victim of lax proofreading is Wilfrid Brambell, whose turn in A Hard Day’s Night earns him a misspelling in the Afterword, while an unwelcome acute accent on the final letter in the title of Godard’s A Bout de Souffle transforms a lack of breath into a shortage of a baked egg-based confection. One failing for which the authors can be entirely absolved is the quality of the physical product. Before the book had even been opened, one page had already detached itself from the binding of the hardback copy sent for review; adjacent pages followed suit as they were read. At £85, it is surely not asking too much to expect a book to remain intact when used as authors and publisher presumably intended? Reverting to the content, if the mistakes itemised here do not devalue the work as a whole, they provide corroboration for the verdict that this is a book which, through a lack of sustained reflection on the implications of the testimony gathered, promises rather more than it delivers.