This book serves as an introduction to the extraordinary diversity of women¿s activism. Paula Bartley's original research is supported by a range of writing to provide a powerful impression of the actions taken by groups of women from across the social and political spectrum, making the book invaluable to both students and interested readers. These women set out to make a difference to their locality, their country and sometimes the world. The story of women¿s activism embodies stimulating accounts of progress and reversals, of commitment and uncertainty, of competing rights and challenging wrongs. The story of women¿s activism is not tidy or well-ordered. It is messy and unorthodox. And full of surprises.

Paula Bartley is a feminist historian who has written widely on, and promoted, women's history. Her books include Ellen Wilkinson (2014), Queen Victoria (2016) and Labour Women in Power: Cabinet Ministers in the Twentieth Century (Palgrave, 2019). She is a former judge and Chair of the Women's History Network book prize.

1. Introduction: Themes and Debates.- 2. A New Age: 1900-1914.- 3. The Home Front: 1914-1918.- 4. The Not-So-Roaring Twenties: 1918-1929.- 5. The Hungry Thirties: 1930-1939.- 6. The Second World War: 1939-1945.- 7. The Post-War World: 1945-1960.- 8. The Less-Than-Swinging Sixties: 1960-1970.- 9. The Selfish Seventies?: 1970-1979.- 10. Margaret Thatcher's Age and After: 1979-2000.- 11. Conclusion: Change and Continuities.