The editors of this collection have worked with the aim of providing a range of chapters which cover as wide a temporal and geographical span of Europe between the eighteenth century and the present day as is possible in one volume. A broad range of disciplinary (and multidisciplinary) perspectives is also represented here, including history, sociology, politics, social policy, and gender studies. Quite rightly, the editors argue that ‘all too often social movements are viewed through a gender-neutral lens’ (p. 1) with the notable exception of studies which concentrate on feminism or, to a lesser extent, the labour movement. A volume that takes the role of gender in interpreting these movements as central to its argument is therefore to be warmly welcomed. Unfortunately, this collection does not fully succeed in meeting its stated aims.

There are some fundamental mistakes in the presentation here that better proofreading and copyediting by Ashgate should have caught. It does not inspire confidence that the blurb on the back of the book assures readers that the ‘settings range from nineteenth-century Catalonia to Switzerland and Poland....’ when the chapter in question – written by one of the editors! – in fact deals with the eighteenth century, quite apart from the fact that the phrasing suggests that the contributions dealing with the other two countries are also on earlier periods rather than, as they do, discussing the late twentieth century. This leads on to a more substantial issue: the chronological periods covered by the contributors. Historians should note that the time period spanned by the volume is extraordinarily uneven. Only one of the fourteen substantive chapters focuses on the eighteenth century, and two contributions deal with the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The remaining eleven essays primarily examine social movements in Europe since 1970, making an occasional brief reference (generally confined to little more than a paragraph) to earlier periods for contextual purposes. While it is practically impossible ever to arrange a truly equal spread of topics and periods covered under the themes of an essay collection, this level of imbalance is very disappointing in a project where the editors stress repeatedly that the book allows for comparisons to be drawn between chapters dealing with different regions. This is not an especially convincing argument as it stands unless the editorial team is referring specifically to comparisons that examine Europe in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century, the period most commonly dealt with by the various authors.

There is also a good deal of unevenness in whether or not individual authors make a concerted effort to situate their chapter historically. In some cases this is effectively ignored altogether. This seems a particularly strange oversight since one of the three editors is an historian, and several others have contributed to the book. While Berteke Waaldijk's examination of the Dutch women's healthcare movement and welfare state between 1975 and 2005 is clearly written, nuanced in its use of evidence, and remains tightly focused on continuity and change across a thirty-year period, her thoughtful demonstration of how this movement relates to the broader context of the contemporary history of the Netherlands is unfortunately not replicated consistently throughout the book. Even allowing for differences between disciplines about how such contextualisation might be conducted, this varied approach to historicity from individual contributors is jarring for the reader. It would have been helpful for the editors to take a more consistent approach on this front, and encourage those authors who had not done so to pay closer attention to the specificities of their period, as well as their region. Much more successful is the care taken by each author to spell out what their findings demonstrate about the gendered nature of social movements and well-being in the nation or province they are writing about. In the case of each of the areas discussed, the contributors are careful not to assume any prior knowledge of the region on the part of the audience, and to explain the context clearly for those who might be unfamiliar with it.

Although the editors have done admirably well in selecting chapters that demonstrate the centrality of gender (often regrettably overlooked) to our understanding of social movements across a wide geographical spread within Europe, the marked imbalance in terms of historicity (both in terms of periods covered and the approaches of specific chapters) raises serious questions about its cohesion as a volume and its intended audience. While much of the material presented here is interesting and valuable, it seems to be overwhelmingly intended for sociologists working on the immediate present. For historians interested in a multidisciplinary approach to these important and under-studied issues, this collection is likely to prove a frustrating read.