About the Author

Alyson Brown is a Senior Lecturer in History at Edge Hill College of Higher Education. She is on the management board of the Centre for Liverpool and Merseyside Studies and was organiser of the ‘Identities’ conference (2005) for this research centre. Her main research interest is English penal history and she has recently published English society and the prison (Willan, 2003). She has also published several chapters and articles on this subject area.

Reviews

"This well-edited combination of shared conceptual purpose and variety of empirical form seems to me to work well. The book will be widely used in a variety of historical fields, not least in those which have been the most resistant to recenttheoretical innovations in the social sciences. Keith Nield Editor SOCIAL HISTORY 'This is a fascinating and wide-ranging collection of essays linked by the over-riding theme of identity. While primarily historical in their focus, the essays will be of interest to more than just historians. They raise a variety of interesting conceptual and theoretical issues, from, for instance, the significance of the staymaker in the formation of eighteenth-century female identity, to the relationship between regional identity and late-nineteenth and early twentieth century Lancashire seaside resorts.' Sam Davies, Professor of History, School of Social Science, Liverpool John Moores University"