Essays in the History of Youth and Community Work: Discovering the Past

I love these books. This is the fourth to emerge from the Durham History Conference dedicated to unravelling the many past aspects of youth and community work and providing an anchor for contemporary practice. Inevitably this book is a mixed bag in terms of focus, the nature of analysis and the direction in which the reader is taken. That may be a weakness sometimes but it is the strength here: we can dwell on aspects of history, seeking to confirm or challenge our perspectives.

For my own personal reasons, I was particularly interested in the contributions by John Holmes on the development and demise of Westhill College, Filip Coussee's reflection on the "methodological turn" in youth work history rooted in the different understandings of youth held by Robert Baden-Powell and his contemporary Jozef Cardijn, and Michael Butterfield and Jean Spence's commentary on a decade of UK Youth (long before it had that name, but when it metamorphosed from Girls' Clubs to Girls' Clubs and Mixed Clubs).