Desmond King, In the Name of Liberalism: Illiberal Social Policy in the United States and Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, xiii+340 pp.

Sanford M. Jacoby, Modern Manors: Welfare Capitalism Since the New Deal, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1997, xii+345 pp.

These are two substantial and important books. They cover different terrain, but both make significant observations about the nature of social policy and the environment in which it is determined. Desmond King's work examines the framing of the notion of citizenship in the context of the American and British states' claims to be liberal and democratic polities. In particular he investigates the manner in which ‘out’ groups in these two societies have been, and continue to be, treated differentially. Sanford Jacoby's concern is to trace the history of welfare capitalism in the United States and to assess how the various paternalistic models of the workplace were affected by and, in turn, how they affected, the evolution of state provided welfare and the development of the organised labour movement.