"Not only does this book document the recent history of women’s magazines and their role in our changing ideology and identity, it also provides invaluable insight into the social history of Gen X women born during a time of radical changes when feminist ideology experienced one of its broadest shifts. Many astute lessons can be drawn from this work. Developed through articulate research, it has evolved into a thoughtfully constructed narrative with verve and pace, culminating in an insightful narrative for historians, industry professionals and magazine enthusiasts. Indeed, Sharon Maxwell-Magnus has successfully bridged that impossible gap by developing a text for academics and professionals, each of whom can draw on those valuable, real-world examples documented within these chapters."Mary Hogarth, academic, media specialist and author of Business Strategies for Magazine Publishing (Routledge, 2018) and Writing Feature Articles (Routledge, 2019).“Sharon Maxwell Magnus’s expertise garnered from her successful career as a British journalist and now senior media academic means that she is ideally placed to report on this era of magazine journalism in the UK from 1975-1992 . This was the period immediately before the rise of the internet and social media when magazines like Cosmopolitan, Woman’s Own and Spare Rib were hugely popular and uniquely positioned to speak to British women. This important new book builds on the work of magazine scholars working on women’s magazines like Marjorie Ferguson, Janice Winship, Angela McRobbie, Joke Hermes, and Anna Gough-Yates. It fills a gap in magazine and media scholarship about British women’s magazines by giving voice to journalists and activists like Jane Reed, Deirdre McSharry, Linda Kelsey,Marcelle, D’Argy Smith, Ruth Wallsgrove, and Alison Fell who were part of the feminist zeitgeist in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s. Maxwell Magnus provides many fascinating insights into political and popular culture in the era of the Women’s Liberation Movement , Margaret Thatcher, and later Cherie and Tony Blair. [This book] sheds light on the many forms of feminism and how it was shaped in and by the popular media in the later decades of the twentieth century. A fascinating read for magazine scholars, journalists, and students of media, gender and popular culture.”Rebecca Johinke, University of Sydney
