Analyzing the role of colonialism and racism in shaping ideas of motherhood, employment and domesticity, it brilliantly traces the way in which Englishness became associated with domestic order and the very idea of home became white, exploring themes that reverberate strongly today as arguments around gender, race and feminism occupy the headlines.
Drawing extensively on oral history and life-writing of politicians, journalists, churchmen, health professionals, novelists and film-makers, Wendy Webster examines the multiple meanings of home to women in narratives of belonging and unbelonging. Its focus on the complex interrelationships of white and black women's lives and identities offers a compelling new perspective on this period.
This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Preface by the author.
'Highly readable and authoratative, introducing readers to potentially difficult ideas in a thoroughly accessible way.' - Ethnic and Racial Studies
'This is an interesting and important book and should stand as a landmark study for this formative period of contemporary British history.' - Professor Mary Chamberlain, Women's History Review
'Highly readable and authoratative, introducing readers to potentially difficult ideas in a thoroughly accessible way.' - Ethnic and Racial Studies
'This is an interesting and important book and should stand as a landmark study for this formative period of contemporary British history.' - Professor Mary Chamberlain, Women's History Review