Poverty in Modern Europe explores the spatial dimensions of poverty in nineteenth and twentieth-century Europe. Its essays focus on a variety of regional, local, and institutional settings and apply different approaches and methods, such as micro history, historical geography, network analysis, and the study of political and academic expert discourses. They are grouped into four sections. The first concentrates on the question of how it was that within the same national legal framework, poverty could be administered and experienced so differently at regional and local levels. Although the discussion of 'welfare regionalism' has been accepted as an important perspective in both the social sciences and social history, it has not resulted in many comparative studies or produced a valid framework for comparisons. The following three sections ask how urban and rural spaces of poverty were constructed by political, academic, and administrative discourses and how 'localities' of poor
relief were experienced by the poor. Many essays look into the spatial dimensions of processes of inclusion and exclusion. They examine the role played by institutions (such as workhouses) and by social networks (such as families and neighbourhoods), and are particularly interested in what has frequently, albeit not uncontroversially, been termed the 'agency' of the poor and its spatial dimensions. The volume tests different approaches in different countries and suggests a number of aspects and yardsticks to consider when comparing regional or local differences. While the main geographical focus is on English-speaking and German-speaking Europe, the volume also contains comparative perspectives on France and Russia.

About the Author:
Andreas Gestrich, Trier University, Elisabeth Grüner, Trier University, Susanne Hahn, Trier University

Andreas Gestrich was appointed to the chair of modern European history at Trier University in 1997. From 2006 to 2018 he served as the director of the German Historical Institute London. His main research interests are the history of childhood, family and youth, the history of media and the political public spheres, and the history of poverty, poor relief, and the welfare state. He is co-editor with Elizabeth Hurren and Steven King of Poverty and Sickness in Modern Europe (2012) and with Beate Althammer and Jens Gründler of The Welfare State and the 'Deviant Poor' in Europe 1870-1933 (2014).

Elisabeth Grüner is a former Research Fellow in Contemporary History at the interdisciplinary Collaborative Research Centre 'Strangers and Poor People: Changing Patterns of Inclusion and Exclusion from Classical Antiquity to the Present Day' at Trier University. She works in public administration in the field of integration and equal opportunities. Her research interests include the history of poverty and rural society as well as the history of migration with an emphasis on the second half of the twentieth century.

Susanne Hahn is a Research Fellow in Contemporary History at the Forschungszentrum Europa at Trier University with a research emphasis on rural poverty and policies for rural development in Germany after the Second World War.