This volume explores developments in health and social care in Ireland and Britain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The central objectives are to highlight the role of voluntarism in healthcare, to examine healthcare in local and regional contexts, and to provide comparative perspectives. The collection is based on two interconnected and overlapping research themes: voluntarism and healthcare, and regionalism/localism and healthcare. It includes two synoptic overviews by leading authorities in the field, and ten case studies focusing on particular aspects of voluntary and/or regional healthcare in Ireland and Britain.

"Not only was Churchill the most illustrious and the most distinguished Chancellor that the University of Bristol has ever had, but he was also in his prime, from the 1940s onwards, probably the most famous and the most distinguished chancellor of any university anywhere in the world." David Cannadine

This book examines, for the first time, the history of the social, cultural, political and economic presence of the French in London, and explores the multiple ways in which this presence has contributed to the life of the city. The capital has often provided a place of refuge, from the Huguenots in the 17th century, through the period of the French Revolution, to various exile communities during the 19th century, and on to the Free French in the Second World War.It also considers the generation of French citizens who settled in post-war London, and goes on to provide insights into the contemporary French presence by assessing the motives and lives of French people seeking new opportunities in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It analyses the impact that the French have had historically, and continue to have, on London life in the arts, gastronomy, business, industry and education, manifest in diverse places and institutions from the religious to the political via the educational, to the commercial and creative industries.

Human rights in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity are at last reaching the heart of global debates. Yet 78 states worldwide continue to criminalise same-sex sexual behaviour, and due to the legal legacies of the British Empire, 42 of these – more than half – are in the Commonwealth of Nations. In recent years many states have seen the emergence of new sexual nationalisms, leading to increased enforcement of colonial sodomy laws against men, new criminalisations of sex between women and discrimination against transgender people.   Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in The Commonwealth: Struggles for Decriminalisation and Change challenges these developments as the first book to focus on experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) and all non-heterosexual people in the Commonwealth. The volume offers the most internationally extensive analysis to date of the global struggle for decriminalisation of same-sex sexual behaviour and relationships.   The book includes: The first quantitative analysis of legal change related to sexual orientation and gender identity across all the Commonwealth’s 54 Member States, and an overview of existing transnational politics and activism. 13 peer-reviewed chapters by academics and activists presenting analyses of struggles for decriminalisation and change in 16 national contexts covering all regions of the Commonwealth: United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa, Botswana, Malawi, Uganda, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Bahamas.   A unique comparative analysis across the Commonwealth, based on the 16 national analyses, focusing on learning lessons from states in the global South where decriminalisation of same-sex sexual behaviour has been achieved, including the Bahamas, South Africa and India. Some recent transnational activism has sought to use the Commonwealth as a medium to achieve decriminalisation. This volume distinctively opens up questions of how such developments should be interpreted in the contexts of colonialism and post-colonialism, and critical perspectives on cultural racism, Southern theory and homonationalism. It thus offers analytical frameworks for developing struggles and strategies for decriminalisation and human rights in the context of a multi-dimensional understanding of inequalities and power.     About the editors: Dr Corinne Lennox is Lecturer in Human Rights at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, United Kingdom.   Dr Matthew Waites is Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Glasgow, United Kingdom.