The National Health Service has provided Britain's healthcare since 1948. This institution has been the subject of tense political debate since its inception and has undergone a number of complex reforms and restructures. But the meanings of the NHS are not only - or even primarily - lived out in politics. Nearly every Briton comes into contact with the NHS - from cradle to grave - and this system of healthcare shapes society, culture and everyday life. This book charts these multiple meanings, looking at the NHS as a site of work, activism and consumerism, as a space and in cultural representations. Looking in these ways, the book shows how and why the NHS has become a symbol of Britishness and an object of fierce protectiveness, even love, today.
Jennifer Crane is a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in History at the University of Oxford and worked as a Public Engagement Research Fellow on the Cultural History of the NHS project at the University of Warwick
Jane Hand worked as a Research Fellow on the Cultural History of the NHS project at the University of Warwick
Title: Posters, protests, and prescriptions: Cultural histories of the National Health Service in Britain: 34 (Social Histories of Medicine)
Author: Hand, Jane,Crane, Jennifer
ISBN: 9781526163462
Binding:
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Publication Date: 2022-06-07
Number of Pages: 368
Weight: 0.5892 kg
'This is the first book to address the NHS using a cultural studies framework. It produces rich and complex evidence of change over time across popular attachments and social meanings and attitudes, while demonstrating the value of new approaches to visual and material sources.'
Stephanie Snow, Professor of Health, History and Policy, University of Manchester
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