Ann Oakley is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the UCL Social Research Institute. A social researcher for more than 50 years, and author of many academic publications, she is also well known for her biography, autobiography and fiction. Her books include The Sociology of Housework, From Here to Maternity and The Men's Room which was serialised by the BBC in 1991, and most recently Women, Peace and Welfare (Policy Press, 2018).

• Legacies of difficult women: the story of this book;Imagining the good society: from economic facts to utopian fictions;Settlement sociology: discovering social science;Municipal housekeeping: women clean up the cities;Sanitary science: putting the science into housework;'Peace is too small a word for all this': women peace makers;'Our cosmic patriotism': diversity and the dangers of nationalism;Deeds, not words: women reformers and healthcare;Dangerous trades: reforming industrial labour;Domestic relations: female attachments, homes, and the trouble with marriage;New deals: women reformers in the 1920s and 1930s;Ways of forgetting: women reformers as missing persons.

“What distinguishes this new account...is that, whereas in many earlier studies the ideas and achievements of women have been portrayed as playing an important, but nonetheless largely subaltern, role in the wider evolution of the period, Ann Oakley’s gripping narrative centres upon reform movements, scientific innovations and philosophical systems in which many of the major protagonists of change were themselves members of the female sex” Journal of Social Policy (Cambridge University Press)