"The social problems of the 19th Century - of poverty, crime, squalor, poor health and education - are still with us, if in different forms. In the 20th Century, we came to recognise other problems, particularly those associated with social discrimination in terms of class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age and disability. The 21st Century already reveals new cultural and economic shifts on the local, national and global scales - changes which will affect the distribution of wealth, the provision of services and the ways in which we will view society itself." "This third edition of this best-selling work brings the analysis up to the present with a detailed discussion of the radical shifts in social policy under the Thatcher, Major and Blair administrations."--Jacket.