The Origin of the Welfare State in England and Germany, 1850-1914

Peter Hennock's new study of the comparative history of social welfare policies in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England and Germany is in some respects a sequel to his impressive work on the evolution of social insurance in the two countries, British Social Reform and German Precedents, 1880–1914 (1987; rev. ante, ciii [1988], 699–701). But it is more ambitious in scope than the earlier work, covering the poor laws, accidental and industrial injuries, sickness, old age and unemployment as well as social insurance policies. It introduces British readers to important recent German historical monographs on these subjects, and above all it makes use of the thirteen volumes of German primary sources on social welfare, published between 1993 and 2004 as Quellensammlung zur Geschichte der deutschen Sozialpolitik, 1867–1914. By analysing the history of social welfare provision at both the local and national levels, Dr Hennock skilfully identifies parallel developments in the two countries; but he also draws out the numerous ways in which policies that appeared superficially very similar in fact differed markedly both in scope and administrative details, and in their relation to their respective national cultures

Economic growth · Economic history · Economics · German · National Insurance · Political science · Politics · Poor relief · Poverty · Scope (computer science · Social insurance · Social policy · Social Welfare · Unemployment · Welfare · Welfare state · Work (physics · World War II · European Political History Analysis · European Socioeconomic and Political Studies · History · Law · Social Policy and Reform Studies