Review of Women's Leisure in England 1920-1960

Manchester University Press published this book as part of its excellent Studies in Popular Culture series. It is well placed: other titles in the series address smoking, drinking, cars, sex, seaside holidays, film and spiritualism. Several of the titles focus specifically on the British experience and, as such, can be read individually or together to provide an enriching portrait of the cultural history of this country. The series editor, Jeffrey Richards, points out that the roots of the series lie in the interdisciplinary fusion of social history and cultural studies to 'explore the ways in which a culture is imagined, represented and received'. Claire Langhamer's contribution has as its stated audience social, cultural and gender historians and those in the fields of sociology, cultural studies, women's studies and leisure studies. This book successfully caters for such a diverse audience, but in addition the series offers much to the design historian in terms of contextualizing the meanings and practice of design consumption.