Lawrence Goldman is Lecturer in Modern History at University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Peter's College.

• List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Note on citations in the text; List of abbreviations; Introduction: the contexts of the Social Science Association; Part I. Politics: 1. The origins of the Social Science Association: legal reform, the reformation of juveniles, and the property of married women in 'the Age of Equipoise'; 2. The Social Science Association and the structure of mid-Victorian politics; 3. Organising the Social Science Association; Part II. Reform: 4. Liberalism divided and feminism divided: women and the Social Science Association; 5. Transportation, reformation and convict discipline: the Social Science Association and Victorian penal policy 1853–71; 6. Victorian socio-medical liberalism: the Social Science Association and state medicine; 7. Labour and capital: the Social Science Association, trade unionism, and industrial harmony; 8. The Social Science Association and middle-class education: secondary schooling, endowments, and professionalism in mid-Victorian England; 9. The Social Science Association and the making of social policy; Part III. Science: 10. Social science in domestic context: popular science, sociology, and a 'science of reform'; 11. Social science in comparative international context; Part IV. Decline: 12. The decline of the Social Science Association: Liberal division, specialisation, and the end of Equipoise; Conclusion: the Social Science Association and social knowledge; Appendices; Select bibliography; Index.

'… immaculately researched and lively … This study of the life and work of the social Science Association, is more than just and institutional history. It provides a valuable insight into the particular conditions and concerns of mid-Victorian Britain and will undoubtedly prove essential reading for the considerable academic audience on this period.' History