Peter Townsend was a leading British sociologist. Anyone who has examined his ‘Complete List of Publications 1948–2008’ will be aware of his immense and wide-ranging contribution to social science both nationally and internationally. According to Alan Walker, the overall editor of this collection of readings, Townsend was involved in the initial stages of producing this volume and would have written an introduction to it had it not been for his sudden death in June 2009. The book is, however, a very fitting celebration of his life's work. As Walker argues in his introduction to the book, the scope of Townsend's scholarship was remarkable, reflecting the connections he could see between social problems. All his intellectual endeavours were underpinned by his desire to tackle injustice and inequality and to create change. Hence his theoretical arguments were always backed up with meticulously acquired empirical data, both quantitative and qualitative. He was, as Walker says, not only a skilled researcher, theorist and policy analyst, but also an active and successful campaigner. He was co-founder of the Child Poverty Action group in 1965 and the Disability Alliance in 1974, and amongst his many successes were the development of sheltered housing for older people and the introduction of Attendance Allowance in the UK.
The book is organised into eight sections, representing major areas of Townsend's work, each assembled and introduced by an expert in the field: sociology and social policy (Alan Walker); international welfare (Nicola Yeates); poverty (David Gordon); inequality and social exclusion (Ruth Levitas); health inequalities and health policy (Peter Phillimore); older people (Chris Phillipson); disability (Alan Walker); social justice and human rights (Margot E. Salomon). The readings span Townsend's lengthy writing career and include extracts from some of his books, book chapters, journal, newspaper and magazine articles, and campaigning literature. In each section, the readings are organised more or less chronologically and this, together with the editors' introductions, enables the reader to see how Townsend's ideas evolved over the years. The editors have had to be extremely selective in their choice of extracts but despite this, there will be several surprises for many readers. I found plenty, such as an article published in 1976 in the New Statesman, ‘How the rich stay rich’, an article in the first volume of Critical Social Policy published in 1981 ‘Guerrillas, subordinates and passers-by: the relationship between sociologists and social policy’, and an article published in New Left Review in 1995 ‘Persuasion and conformity: an assessment of the Borrie Report on social justice’. Although only eight of the 58 extracts are related specifically to older people, the whole book should be read by any gerontologist who wants to understand the connections between social structures and social issues which affect older and younger people alike, such as poverty and social exclusion, inequality, health and disability. Furthermore, Townsend developed a truly international perspective and many of the extracts in this book will assist gerontologists in understanding the global context of ageing and social policy.
The section on older people put together and introduced by Chris Phillipson includes six readings. The first is a chapter on ‘The family system of care’ from The Family Life of Old People (1957), Townsend's classic community study of Bethnal Green. An important message to come out of this chapter, one that people still need to be reminded of, is the reciprocal nature of caring relationships between younger and older generations. Also included are extracts from another of Townsend's classics, The Last Refuge (1962). Phillipson has selected one of the later chapters, ‘Some effects upon old people of living in residential homes’, where Townsend articulates his argument that residential care for older people should be abandoned as an instrument of social policy. Both these chapters demonstrate Townsend's literary talent – his ability to write so evocatively – as well as his formidable analytical skills. I was pleased to see that Phillipson makes some reference to the photographs which are published in The Last Refuge which were taken by Townsend himself. Townsend also took a great many photographs when conducting his research of family life in Bethnal Green. Unfortunately, despite his pleas to Routledge & Kegan Paul for some of these photographs to be included in The Family Life of Old People, the publisher refused, claiming it would ‘lower the tone’ of the book.Footnote 1 It might have given Townsend great pleasure if some of them finally could have been published in this volume.
Townsend's original contribution to the first edition of Ageing & Society published in 1981, ‘The structured dependency of the elderly’, is also part of the section on older people. It is matched by a contribution he made to the 25th anniversary edition when he was invited to reflect on his original thesis of structured dependency and here he emphasises the importance he attached in his later years to the use of human rights legislation to monitor and tackle injustice. Margot E. Salomon has included extracts from a later version of this paper in her section of the book on human rights.
The other two readings Phillipson has selected are on retirement and on pensions. The former is a paper published in Occupational Medicine in 1955, ‘The anxieties of retirement’, which reflects concerns at the time about the impact of retirement on older men. The latter is Townsend's critique, published in 1999, of the Labour Party's policies on pensions, the ‘minimum pension guarantee’ and ‘stakeholder pensions’. In addition, Alan Walker includes an extract from a chapter published in 1973 on ‘Elderly people with disabilities’ which discusses the failure of policy makers to acknowledge disablement amongst older people and the consequences.
It is impossible to do justice to this book in a short review but it is a very valuable collection of extracts which any serious student or teacher of gerontology, and indeed sociology and social policy more generally, should read. It demonstrates that Townsend's writings over the last 60 years are as relevant today as they were in the past. Furthermore, given its length, this book is excellent value for money.
