From reformation to improvement: public welfare in early modern England ; the Ford Lectures delivered in the University of Oxford, 1994 - 1995

Paul Slack's incisive analysis shows how the English came to believe between 1500 and 1740 that piecemeal improvement was more likely to be achieved than total social reformation. He examines social policy and institutions such as workhouses and hospitals in order to illustrate how contemporaries tried to shape their social and moral environment, and how they defined the notion of `welfare'.