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Life After A Death: A Study of the Elderly Widowed (Routledge Library Editions: Aging)
By Ann Bowling, Ann Cartwright. 1982
The recently widowed experience many complex problems, and an understanding of their needs and the kinds of difficulties they encounter…
is essential if appropriate services and help are to be mobilized. It is the old who are most likely to be widowed, and they may face this crisis at a time when they may also be adjusting to ill health and increasing infirmity, and to retirement, with its problems of role identification and adaptation to an increase in leisure and a decrease in wealth. Most will have to learn to live alone, or to uproot themselves from their home and adjust to life with relatives. Often, the elderly person will have been involved in caring for their spouse during his or her terminal illness; widowhood will mean that they have lost their main occupation. For some, who are themselves disabled, widowhood may mean that they have lost the person who cared for them, so that there is an immediate crisis as alternative sources of care need to be found. These problems have to be faced in a situation often complicated by the anxiety, loneliness, apathy, and bewilderment of bereavement.Originally published in 1982, Life After A Death presents the results of a study of the experiences and attitudes of over 350 elderly widowed men and women, their general practitioners, and their relatives, friends, and neighbours, and considers the implications of the help the widowed received, or failed to receive, from those to whom it was most likely that they would turn for support. The authors’ identification and description of the emotional and practical day-to-day needs of the widowed, and their recommendations about the potential role of the general practitioner and voluntary and social services, should be considered by all those concerned to alleviate the difficulties of the widowed, and to help them to live a better ‘life after a death’.Life Before Death (Routledge Library Editions: Aging)
By Ann Cartwright, Lisbeth Hockey, John L. Anderson. 1973
Since death is an experience which will inevitably be common to us all, we are often surprisingly uninterested in what…
services are provided for those people, often the elderly and infirm, who are at risk or who are on the point of death. Originally published in 1973, this study describes the last twelve months in the lives of 785 adults. Based mainly on the reports of close relatives, it is concerned with the needs of the dying and the care they receive. This includes the more emotional aspects such as ‘awareness’ of dying and the effects of the death on relatives. The book looks at the part played by hospitals, general practitioners, local authority health and welfare services, and by relatives, friends and neighbours. The views of those who provide these services are also considered. The picture that emerges shows up the gaps in the care that was given to people in the final year of their lives at the time.BOOM! SPLAT!: Comics and Violence
By Jim Coby and Joanna Davis-McElligatt. 2024
Contributions by Lawrence Abrams, Diana Álvarez Amell, Partha Bhattacharjee, Natalja Chestopalova, Jim Coby, Rita Costello, Sam Cowling, Joanna Davis-McElligatt, Elisabetta…
Di Minico, Kiera M. Gaswint, Vincent Haddad, Kaleb Knoblauch, Christina M. Knopf, Leah Milne, Jacob Murel, Priyanka Tripathi, and Steven S. Vrooman In 1954, the culture, distribution, and content of comics forever changed. Long a mainstay of America’s reading diet, comic books began to fall under the scrutiny of parent groups, church leaders, and politicians. The bright colors and cheaply printed pulp pages of comic books that had once provided an escape were suddenly presumed to house something lascivious, insidious, and morally corrosive. While anxieties about representations of violence in comics have largely fallen to the wayside since the moral panic of the 1950s, thematic and symbolic visual depictions of violence remain central to the comics form. BOOM! SPLAT! Comics and Violence examines violence in every iteration—physical violence enacted between people and their environments, formal and structural violence embedded in the comics language itself, representations of historical violence, and ways of reading and seeing violence.BOOM! SPLAT! is composed of fifteen essays from renowned comics scholars and is organized thematically into four sections, including an examination of histories of violence, forms of violence, modes and systems of violence, and political and social violence. Chapters focus on well-known comics and comics creators, such as Steve Ditko, Hulk, X-Men, and the Marvel universe, to newspaper cartoon strips, postwar graphic novels, revolution, civil rights, trauma, #blacklivesmatter, and more. BOOM! SPLAT! serves as a resource to scholars and comics enthusiasts who wish to contemplate and confront the permutations, forms, structures, and discourses of violence that have always animated cartoons. Through this interrogation, our understanding of violence moves beyond the immediately physical and interpersonal into modes of ephemeral, psychological, and ideological violence. Contributors fill critical gaps by offering sustained explorations of the function of manifold violences in the comics language—those seen, felt, and imagined. The essays in this collection are critically necessary for understanding the current and historical role that violence has played in comics and will help recognize how cartooning imbricates, resists, and expands our thinking about and experiences of violence.Grief: A Guided Workbook to Help You Heal
By Christopher Spriggs. 2024
With comforting advice and supportive activities, Grief: A Guided Workbook to Help You Heal is a comforting companion to help…
you make sense of your feelings after experiencing loss. If you're dealing with grief, you may feel isolated and alone, but this book is here to offer you support through each step of this personal journey.Did I Ever Tell You?: The most moving memoir of 2024
By Genevieve Kingston. 2024
'Compelling and heartbreaking' Ann NapolitanoA deeply moving memoir of a young daughter, her dying mother - and the trail of…
letters and gifts she left behind.'Her messages met me like guideposts in a dark forest; if her words couldn't point the way, at least they offered the comfort of knowing someone had been there before'Ten days before Gwen Kingston turned twelve, her beloved mother - with whom she shared a birthday - died. She left behind two chests - one for Gwen and one for her brother - filled with lovingly wrapped presents and letters marking the milestones she would miss: driver's licences, graduations and every one of their birthdays until the age of thirty. Each gift a chance to reach back into the past and, for the briefest moment, hear her voice again.Over the last twenty years, the chest of treasures has travelled with Gwen across a continent, from state to state and apartment to apartment, growing lighter with each passing birthday. And now, just three gifts remain . . .In this beautiful and heart-rending memoir, Gwen describes growing up in the shadow of loss, guided by what her mother left behind. Woven in is her mother's own story, and that of their whole family - tragedies foreseen and unforeseen, paths taken and not taken. It's about a mother's love for her daughter, but more than that, it is a story of marriage, family, inheritance and everything that shapes a life.Gun Control in Context: Learning from the Australian Gun Control Experience
By Suzanna Fay. 2024
This book approaches the gun control debate by asking what it takes to achieve acceptance of, and compliance with, gun…
control regulations in a community thought to be opposed and resistant. It does this by centring this question on the experience of gun dealers who occupy a dual role in the compliance process – subject to its regulations, yet central to the application of all regulatory processes. The findings are surprising in that they demonstrate more support for gun control than opposition among this group, more willingness to cooperate with authorities than resistance, and more possibility for setting the tone for support with the wider gun owning community. This book considers how policy makers in the USA can capitalise on these overtones of collaboration and concern for public safety and learn from the successes and mistakes of the Australian gun control experience.Gun Control in Context is essential reading for all those engaged across the broad spectrum of the gun control debate and offers a grounded and reasoned approach to the challenges of public policy. It will be of interest to criminologists, legal scholars, and political scientists alike.How To Survive The End Of The World
By Pílula Digital. 2024
In a world where the unthinkable becomes reality, humanity faces the biggest challenge of all: the end of the world.…
In this comprehensive and practical guide, we explore strategies for surviving apocalyptic scenarios, providing a roadmap for preparation, adaptation, and resilience. From initial chaos to creating resilient communities, each chapter dives into the essential skills for facing uncertainty. Through survivor stories, we learn the psychology of resilience and discover how to transform fear into determination. Discover how to secure food and water, build shelter, take care of your physical and mental health, communicate in extreme situations, and much more. Get ready to explore doomsday scenarios based on real facts and science, as we unravel the mysteries of survival. "How to Survive the End of the World" is more than a guide - it's a tool for facing the unknown with confidence. Be prepared to challenge the limits of human resilience and forge a path forward into an uncertain future. The world may be changing, but the strength of human will is unbreakable.The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life
By Katy Butler. 2019
This &“comforting…thoughtful&” (The Washington Post) guide to maintaining a high quality of life—from resilient old age to the first inklings…
of a serious illness to the final breath—by the New York Times bestselling author of Knocking on Heaven&’s Door is a &“roadmap to the end that combines medical, practical, and spiritual guidance&” (The Boston Globe).&“A common sense path to define what a &‘good&’ death looks like&” (USA TODAY), The Art of Dying Well is about living as well as possible for as long as possible and adapting successfully to change. Packed with extraordinarily helpful insights and inspiring true stories, award-winning journalist Katy Butler shows how to thrive in later life (even when coping with a chronic medical condition), how to get the best from our health system, and how to make your own &“good death&” more likely. Butler explains how to successfully age in place, why to pick a younger doctor and how to have an honest conversation with them, when not to call 911, and how to make your death a sacred rite of passage rather than a medical event. This handbook of preparations—practical, communal, physical, and spiritual—will help you make the most of your remaining time, be it decades, years, or months. Based on Butler&’s experience caring for aging parents, and hundreds of interviews with people who have successfully navigated our fragmented health system and helped their loved ones have good deaths, The Art of Dying Well also draws on the expertise of national leaders in family medicine, palliative care, geriatrics, oncology, and hospice. This &“empowering guide clearly outlines the steps necessary to prepare for a beautiful death without fear&” (Shelf Awareness).Reunited: Family Separation and Central American Youth Migration
By Ernesto Castañeda, Daniel Jenks. 2024
In the second decade of the twenty-first century, an increasing number of children from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala began…
arriving without parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. In many cases, the parents had left for the United States years earlier to earn money that they could send back home. In Reunited sociologists Ernesto Castañeda and Daniel Jenks explain the reasons for Central American youths’ migration, describe the journey, and document how the young migrants experience separation from and subsequent reunification with their families. In interviews with Central American youth, their sponsors, and social services practitioners in and around Washington, D.C., Castañeda and Jenks find that Central American minors migrate on their own mainly for three reasons: gang violence, lack of educational and economic opportunity, and a longing for family reunification. The authors note that youth who feel comfortable leaving and have feelings of belonging upon arrival integrate quickly and easily while those who experience trauma in their home countries and on their way to the United States face more challenges. Castañeda and Jenks recount these young migrants’ journey from Central America to the U.S. border, detailing the youths’ difficulties passing through Mexico, proving to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials that they have a legitimate fear of returning or are victims of trafficking, and staying in shelters while their sponsorship, placement, and departure are arranged. The authors also describe the tensions the youth face when they reunite with family members they may view as strangers. Despite their biological, emotional, and financial bonds to these relatives, the youth must learn how to relate to new authority figures and decide whether or how to follow their rules. The experience of migrating can have a lasting effect on the mental health of young migrants, Castañeda and Jenks note. Although the authors find that Central American youths’ mental health improves after migrating to the United States, the young migrants remain at risk of further problems. They are likely to have lived through traumatizing experiences that inhibit their integration. Difficulty integrating, in turn, creates new stressors that exacerbate PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Consequently, schools and social service organizations are critical, the authors argue, for enhancing youth migrants’ sense of belonging and their integration into their new communities. Bilingual programs, Spanish-speaking PTA groups, message boards, mentoring of immigrant children, and after-school programs for members of reunited families are all integral in supporting immigrant youth as they learn English, finish high school, apply to college, and find jobs. Offering a complex exploration of youth migration and family reunification, Reunited provides a moving account of how young Central American migrants make the journey north and ultimately reintegrate with their families in the United States.Twelve Words for Moss: Love, Loss And Moss
By Elizabeth-Jane Burnett. 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2024Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2023 for Nature Writing'Exquisite, luminous and quietly radical . .…
. utterly unique and refreshing' Lucy JonesWhere nothing grows, moss is the spark that triggers new life. Embarking on a journey though landscape, memory and recovery, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett explores this mysterious, ancient marvel of the plant world, meditating on and renaming her favourite mosses – from Glowflake to Little Loss – and drawing inspiration from place, people and language itself. 'Fascinating, subtle and risk-taking . . . Poetry, descriptive-evocative prose, memory, memoir, natural history and more all drift and mingle in strikingly new ways' Robert MacfarlaneTo the Gorge: Running, Grief, and Resilience & 460 Miles on the Pacific Crest Trail
By Emily Halnon. 2024
A riveting narrative of love and loss, grief and joy, as one woman embarks on a quest for a record…
on the Pacific Crest Trail. When Emily Halnon lost her beloved mother to a rare uterine cancer at just sixty-six years old, she wanted to do something monumental to honor the person her mother had been: adventurous, courageous, inspiring. Emily&’s mom had taken up running in her late forties; she ran her first marathon at fifty. She learned to swim at sixty so she could do triathlons, and she lived through a grim diagnosis with extraordinary joy and strength, still going for long bike rides and walks up until the final weeks before her death. She even went skydiving to celebrate her sixtieth birthday. It was going to take something special to pay tribute to such a remarkable, lifeloving spirit. Emily, already an accomplished ultrarunner (inspired to initially start running by her mother), decided to try to break the record for the Fastest Known Time by a woman on the Pacific Crest Trail&’s 460 miles across Oregon. As she laid out plans for her run, she began to wonder: Could she also break the men&’s record? To the Gorge takes the reader through her 7 days, 19 hours, and 23 minutes on the trail, covering nearly sixty miles a day on foot over rugged terrain, and battling all the issues that could arise during such a monstrous undertaking: hammered muscles, golf ballsized blisters, sleep deprivation, alpine storms, and debilitating self-doubt. All the while, she simultaneously struggles with how to get through the profound grief of losing her mom and grapples with how to move forward after experiencing devastating loss. Interwoven with Halnon&’s eight-day effort are her remembrances from her mother&’s life and death, exploring the complicated experience of grief—and what shines through it. To the Gorge will resonate with anyone whom life has hit with a hardball and has had to dig deep as they wonder how they will pull through. Filled with adventure and heart, To the Gorge invites readers to consider what our greatest losses can teach us about how to live the one life we get.Too Close to the Flame: With the Condemned inside the Southern Killing Machine
By Joseph B. Ingle. 2024
Joe Ingle&’s Too Close to the Flame is a heartbreakingly beautiful account of over four decades serving as a spiritual…
counselor, guide, and friend to the men and women on Death Row. &“I had been working with the condemned since 1975—but never before had an execution affected me with this much power and confusion.&” Throughout his forty-five years visiting death rows across the American South, Joe Ingle has learned, loved, and suffered intensely. In Too Close to the Flame, Ingle describes how the events of 2018–2020 finally exposed the deep wounds inflicted on his psyche by nearly half a century of enduring the state-sanctioned murder of friend after friend. As an advocate for the men and women condemned to death by an unjust legal system that routinely victimizes the marginalized, Ingle has often found himself waiting through the darkest hours as the spiritual advisor and sole companion of those on deathwatch—the brief period of isolation that precedes an execution. In vivid detail and startling candor, Ingle describes every moment with the expertise of a scholar and the affection of a brother. Through Ingle&’s eyes, we are invited into the inner sanctum during desperate attempts at clemency, intimate final hours, and the mourning that follows a night on deathwatch. Part psychological memoir, part history of Southern state killing since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, Too Close to the Flame is above all a catalogue of love—a gallery of relationships that could only be forged between people staring death in the face together. It is an account of the price of radical Christian love, a record of service to the least among us, and a testament to the full humanity of those whom the powers that be would seek to dehumanize and exterminate.The inspiring story of a Black doctor who was deeply affected by the violence that plagued his Brooklyn childhood and…
later dedicated himself to addressing trauma and violence as public health issuesRob Gore first encountered violence when he was beaten and robbed as a 10-year old; it was treated as an inevitable fact of life, but after another brush with violence as a teen, he began to reject that prevalent attitude. As he matured and became a doctor, he grew in his determination to find treatments for what he saw not as an unavoidable fact for most people living in vulnerable, underserved neighborhoods especially, but as a public health issue that could be addressed by early intervention and solid support, beginning in the medical community. He also became deeply involved in efforts to diversify the entire field of medicine, starting with the &“front lines&” in the Emergency Department.Seeing his brother Angel and close friend Willis fall prey to the epidemic of violence with profound—and in Willis&’s case—deadly consequences, Rob began seriously researching the issue and went on to found an organization which is one of the models for successful approaches to reducing violence and protecting victims, who are disproportionately BIPOC, living in impoverished neighborhoods, or members of the LGBTQ+ community. Here he provides not only statistics, but stories of what he witnessed in NYC neighborhoods, in Atlanta, Chicago, Buffalo and even in medical work in Haiti and Kenya. His work with the Kings Against Violence Initiate (KAVI) and allied organizations is a blueprint for treating violence not as a police matter, but as a public health crisis, which can and should be addressed and substantially reduced. The people he introduces us to in these pages are not merely victims, but often advocates, paving the way for eliminating the epidemic of violence in our country.Breathe: Journeys to Healthy Binding
By Maia Kobabe, Sarah Peitzmeier. 2024
A graphic guide to chest binding with real-life stories and research-backed advice from bestselling Gender Queer author MAIA KOBABE and…
University of Michigan professor SARAH PEITZMEIER. Breathe arose from the need for a resource for folks considering chest binding as gender-affirming care. Dr. Peitzmeier interviewed twenty-five people of different ages and backgrounds about their journeys with binding, and then she and Kobabe combined excerpts from those interviews with evidence-based resources on binding into this extremely accessible guide. Breathe is both a practical resource for trans and nonbinary folks and an engaging and perspective-broadening read for anyone interested in what it means to be on a journey of expressing one&’s gender in ways that are joyful, healthy, and affirming.You Only Die Once: How to Make It to the End with No Regrets
By Jodi Wellman. 2024
A kick-in-the-pants wake-up call to start living meaningfully in light of how many Mondays you have left from longtime coach,…
positive psychology expert, and Penn Resilience Program instructor Jodi Wellman "Wellman poses a profound question we too often avoid: How many Mondays do you have left? This book will jolt you out of complacency and redirect your limited time toward joyful, meaningful pursuits." - Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Regret, Drive, and A Whole New Mind How many Mondays do you have left? Does that question send you into a panic spiral, or are you convinced that, unlike everyone in the history of life on earth, you will somehow avoid the tragic end and live to tell the tale? Statistically, we get about 4,000 Mondays in our lifetime, so if you're halfway through your life, you might have roughly 2,000 Mondays to go. The good news is that you are in charge of how you spend those days: toiling at a job you hate, or creating a career you love; scrolling mindlessly for hours a day, or pursuing the hobbies and travel that light you up; dreading the end, or living a full life that allows you to greet the Grim Reaper with a smile. Built around the principles of positive psychology, You Only Die Once is the jolt that will bring you back to life, no near-death experience required. Full of practical takeaways and research-backed content, this book will motivate readers to take action on the life they want to be living, acting like a defibrillator for the soul. Accompanied by author Jodi Wellman's charming illustrations, this book won't lecture you about eating more kale or insist that the only path forward is to quit your job and move to Provence (although it's not not suggesting you do that either. The latter, that is. We'd never ask anyone to eat more kale.). Instead, it's a real-life guide to small changes that reawaken your passion and curiosity for life. Packed with inspiring stories, exercises, quizzes, quotes, and a step-by-step plan to awaken the liveliest version of you, You Only Die Once is the healthy dose of mortality you need to start living with urgency and meaning.This book is about the therapeutic environment of the Maggie’s centre and explores the many ways this is achieved. With…
an unconventional architecture as required by the design brief, combined with Maggie’s psychological support programme, this special health facility allows extraordinary therapeutic effects in people, to the point that one can speak of therapeutic power.After tracing the story of the Maggie’s centre, the book reveals its fundamentals: Maggie’s Therapeutikos (the-mind-as-important-as-the-body), the Architectural Brief and the ‘Client-Architect-Users’ Triad. It continues by unfolding Maggie’s synergy-that between people and place-which increases users’ psychological flexibility helping them tolerate what was intolerable before. Although comfort and atmospheres are paramount, they are not enough to define the therapeutic environment of the Maggie’s centre. Only by looking at neuroscience that can give us scientific explanations of empathy, feelings and emotions and only considering space neither neutral nor empty, but full of forces that envelop people in an embodied experience, can we explain what generates wellbeing in a Maggie’s centre.The book concludes by critically evaluating the Maggie’s centre as a model to be applied to other healthcare facilities and to architecture in general. It is essential reading for any student or professional working on therapeutic environments.Award-winning author Paula Yoo delivers a compelling, nuanced account of Los Angeles’s 1992 uprising and its impact on its Korean…
and Black American communities. In the spring of 1992, after a jury returned not guilty verdicts in the trial of four police officers charged in the brutal beating of a Black man, Rodney King, Los Angeles was torn apart. Thousands of fires were set, causing more than a billion dollars in damage. In neighborhoods abandoned by the police, protestors and storeowners exchanged gunfire. More than 12,000 people were arrested and 2,400 injured. Sixty-three died. In Rising from the Ashes, award-winning author Paula Yoo draws on the experience of the city’s Korean American community to narrate and illuminate this uprising, from the racism that created economically disadvantaged neighborhoods torn by drugs and gang-related violence, to the tensions between the city’s minority communities. At its heart are the stories of three lives and three families: those of Rodney King; of Latasha Harlins, a Black teenager shot and killed by a Korean American storeowner; and Edward Jae Song Lee, a Korean American man killed in the unrest. Woven throughout, and set against a minute-by-minute account of the uprising, are the voices of dozens others: police officers, firefighters, journalists, business owners, and activists whose recollections give texture and perspective to the events of those five days in 1992 and their impact over the years that followed.The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America
By Michelle S. Phelps. 2024
Challenges to racialized policing, from early reform efforts to BLM protests and the aftermath of George Floyd&’s murder The eruption…
of Black Lives Matter protests against police violence in 2014 spurred a wave of police reform. One of the places to embrace this reform was Minneapolis, Minnesota, a city long known for its liberal politics. Yet in May 2020, four of its officers murdered George Floyd. Fiery protests followed, making the city a national emblem for the failures of police reform. In response, members of the Minneapolis City Council pledged to &“end&” the Minneapolis Police Department. In The Minneapolis Reckoning, Michelle Phelps describes how Minneapolis arrived at the brink of police abolition.Phelps explains that the council&’s pledge did not come out of a single moment of rage, but decades of organizing efforts. Yet the politics of transforming policing were more complex than they first appeared. Despite public outrage over police brutality, the council&’s initiatives faced stiff opposition, including by Black community leaders who called for more police protection against crime as well as police reform. In 2021, voters ultimately rejected the ballot measure to end the department. Yet change continued on the ground, as state and federal investigations pushed police reform and city leaders and residents began to develop alternative models of safety.The Minneapolis Reckoning shows how the dualized meaning of the police—as both the promise of state protection and the threat of state violence—creates the complex politics of policing that thwart change. Phelps&’s account of the city's struggles over what constitutes real accountability, justice, and safety offers a vivid picture of the possibilities and limits of challenging police power today.Grieve, Breathe, Receive: Finding a Faith Strong Enough to Hold Us
By Steve Carter. 2024
What do you do when your world seems to be falling down all around you? When loss is too much…
to bear? When disappointment becomes your new reality? Pastor Steve Carter is certain you&’ll find hope and life through these three simple yet profound steps: Grieve. Breathe. Receive.In 2018, in light of further misconduct allegations against Willow Creek Community Church founder and senior pastor Bill Hybels, Steve Carter announced publicly that he was resigning from his dream job as a lead pastor at that church. After posting his resignation online, he turned off all of his devices and began to weep on his wife's shoulder. The next morning as he was taking a walk to process all the thoughts and feelings tumbling around in his mind, he cried out to Jesus in desperation, begging for an answer. "What am I supposed to do now?" He expected nothing but the silence that had overwhelmed him since hitting send on his message to the world, but before he could take two steps, a gentle whisper impressed three words upon his heart: grieve, breathe, receive.Those three words would become a profound mantra for Steve in the season he would soon begin—a season focused on healing. Deep healing. The kind that comes after painful trauma. In this book, Steve is more personal and vulnerable than he's ever been, and by doing so he encourages all of us to:Allow ourselves the necessary time and space to properly GRIEVE what is, what you thought it was going to be and how key people let you down rather than fill our days with activities and commitments that distract us.Slow down to BREATHE in God's grace, His peace, and His love . . . and to learn how to exhale all the negativity, pain, resentment, and bitterness we carry within us.Be open to RECEIVE all the lessons, surprises, and healing God knows we need for every part of us to be made whole. This process of grieving, breathing, and receiving was a life-restoring gift from God for Steve and his family, and he is certain that it will bless anyone who prayerfully follows it.The Workhouse: The People, the Places, the Life Behind Doors
By Simon Fowler. 2014
&“A poignant account&” of the reality behind these famous Victorian institutions where the poor resided (The Independent). During the…
nineteenth century, the workhouse cast a shadow over the lives of the English poor. The destitute and the desperate sought refuge within its forbidding walls. And it was an ever-present threat if poor families failed to look after themselves properly. In this fully updated and revised edition of his bestselling book, Simon Fowler takes a fresh look at the institution that most of us are familiar with only from Dickens novels or films, and the people who sought help from it. He looks at how the system of the Poor Law of which the workhouse was a key part was organized, and the men and women who ran the workhouses or were employed to care for the inmates. But above all this is the moving story of the tens of thousands of children, men, women and the elderly who were forced to endure grim conditions to survive in an unfeeling world. &“Draws powerfully on letters from The National Archives ... brings out the horror, but it is fair-minded to those struggling to be humane within an inhumane system.&”—The Independent &“A good introduction.&”—The Guardian