The Solidarities of Strangers is a study of English policies toward the poor from the seventeenth century to the present that combines individual stories with official actions. Lynn Lees shows how clients as well as officials negotiated welfare settlements. Cultural definitions of entitlement rather than available resources determined amounts & beneficiaries. Indeed industrialization & growing wealth went along with restricted payments to the needy while universal allowances & insurance systems expanded as the economy faltered & world wars crippled budgets & drained resources. Although the English poor laws were a 'residualist' system aiding the destitute when neither family nor charities covered needs they went through cycles of generosity & meanness that affected men & women unequally. The long-term history of welfare in England & Wales has not been a story of continued progress & improvement but one determined by continually changing attitudes toward poverty.