Based extensively on interviews, examines the voluntary or involuntary leisure time of the working-class in adjacent English industrial cities. Emphasizes the different experiences of men and women, and the distinct youth culture. Distributed by Taylor and Francis. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

First published in 1986. This book explores developments in the cinema, sport, holidays, gambling, drinking and many more recreational activities, and situates working-class leisure within the determining economic and social context. In particular, the inventiveness of working people ‘at play’ is highlighted. Drawing on an extensive range of source material, the book has a wide general appeal, and will be useful to those professionally concerned with leisure, as well as teachers and students of social history, and all those interested in the patterns of working-class life in the past.

The highly contested nature of both 'gender' and 'leisure' encapsulates many of the most critical social and cultural debates of the early twenty-first century. Drawing on a wide range of theoretical perspectives, as well as extensive empirical research, Gender and Leisure goes forward to offer a contemporary socio-cultural analysis of gender relations in leisure practice and leisure policy. The book begins by introducing and evaluating the key social and cultural ideologies, philosophies and beliefs that have informed our theoretical understanding of gender and leisure. The particular leisure policies that have emerged from these perspectives are examined. Part two of Gender and Leisure draws on research in social and cultural theory, gender and leisure studies, cultural geography, management and education, and goes on to explore the reality of contemporary gender relations in leisure practice. Leisure policy, leisure management, places and sites of leisure and leisure education are examined, as are the relationships between leisure, sport and tourism.

Speaking for the People, first published in 1998, draws our attention to the problematic nature of politicians' claims to represent others, and in doing so it challenges conventional ideas about both the rise of class politics, and the triumph of party between 1867 and 1914. The book emphasises the strongly gendered nature of party politics before the First World War, and suggests that historians have greatly underestimated the continuing importance of the 'politics of place'. Most importantly, however, Speaking for the People argues that we must break away from teleological notions such as the 'modernisation' of politics, the taming of the 'popular', or the rise of class. Only then will we understand the shifting currents of popular politics. Speaking for the People represents a major challenge to the ways in which historians and political scientists have studied the interaction between party politics and popular political cultures.

This text draws upon recent feminist theoretical interventions to suggest a framework for the history of women's leisure which explicitly problematises the category leisure and foregrounds its relationship to work within women's lives.

From the bawdy audience of a Victorian Penny Gaff to the excitable crowd of an early twentieth century football match, working-class male leisure proved to be a contentious issue for contemporary observers. For middle-class social reformers from across the political spectrum, the spectacle of popular leisure offered a view of working-class habits, and a means by which lifestyles and behaviour could be assessed. For the mid-Victorians, gingerly stepping into a new mass democratic age, the desire to create a bond between the recently enfranchised male worker and the nation was more important than ever. This trend continued as those in governance perceived that 'good' leisure and citizenship could fend off challenges to social stability such as imperial decline, the mass degenerate city, hooliganism, civic and voter apathy and fascism. Thus, between 1850 and 1945 the issue of male leisure became enmeshed with changing contemporary debates on the encroaching mass society and its implications for good citizenry. Working-class culture has often been depicted as an atomised and fragmented entity lacking any significant cultural contestation. Drawing on a wealth of primary and secondary source material, this book powerfully challenges these recent assumptions and places social class centre stage once more. Arguing that there was a remarkable continuity in male working-class culture between 1850 and 1945, Beaven contends that despite changing socio-economic contexts, male working-class culture continued to draw from a tradition of active participation and cultural contestation that was both class and gender exclusive. This lively and readable book draws from fascinating accounts from those who participated in and observed contemporary popular leisure making it of importance to students and teachers of social history, popular culture, urban history, historical geography, historical sociology and cultural studies.