Issue 151

Book Review: Estates - An Intimate History

29th January 2007

This non-fiction account of the history of state owned housing fuses a factual timeline of the legal and political changes in social housing with the personal story of an extended family's experience of council estates.

Hanley displays a curious bitter affection for the tenements and estates that she has grown up with, and has a knack for revealing the effects of wide scale reforms on the lives of individuals and families.

Although coming across at first as stereotypical, the book gains enormously from the addition of qualitative personal insights.

It's extensive use of key sociological studies, such as Young and Willmott's Bethnal Green study, make it a great entry point for students interested in this aspect of social history, but as it is strongly underpinned by political argument and factual material, it would be of greatest interest to a reader with an already keen interest in sociology.

Holly Thomas