This collection of papers draws on a 2005 conference on ‘Communities and care’. Focussing on the relationship between social care, community and citizenship, its first aim is ‘to question current approaches to “community care” in which the meaning of community is ill-defined and the concept of care is taken for granted’; while the second is ‘to identify effective strategies and practices’ (p. 1). The four sections focus first on key concepts; second, on ‘the ethic of care’ and the moral complexities characterising both personal relationships and professional behaviour; third, on a wide range of practical examples; and, fourth, on international comparisons from Sweden, Germany and Japan.

The mix of research and practice, statistics and ‘personal biographies’, within an overall framework of national and international policy, comes at the reader from different angles that throw revealing light on familiar-looking topics such as ‘care’ and ‘community’. In Chapters 1 and 2, Hill and Balloch nicely sketch the historical background and the complexity of current developments in England: the move away from collective and community involvement with greater individualisation (for example, individual budgets); the ambivalent approach to preventive services with tighter funding; and closer liaison between health and social services which may result in less involvement with urban regeneration programmes. In Chapter 3, Petch provides a contrasting illustration from Scotland, which harks back to earlier conceptions of community social work prevalent in the 1980s.

One of the key themes of this book is the tension between public and private conceptions of ownership of welfare, as phrased by Cheetham (p. 43). Another is the invisibility of care, with Barnes (Chapter 4) drawing on work by Finch and Groves and Fiona Williams to highlight its gendered nature and its location in ‘private spaces’, where care is typically undertaken by unpaid family members or poorly paid care workers. Themes of increasing individualisation and the erosion of a public service ethos are picked up again by Mayo and her colleagues in Chapter 5 in their bleak analysis of the ethical dilemmas faced by front-line workers. A third key theme is the difficulty of applying the concept of citizenship in social care, discussed, for example, in Chapter 6 in relation to dementia.

Accounts of practice form a large part of this book (Chapters 7–13). For example: the tensions between ASBOs and family support; the deeply gendered and privatised ‘community of interest’ characterising survivors of domestic violence; and the lack of understanding of black and ethnic minorities' needs and experiences of social care. It is notable however that ‘community’ hardly figures in these accounts. That said, three of these chapters tell the stories of community-based projects: a Community Care Development Project in Hull (Chapter 10), a Neighbourhood Care Scheme in Brighton and Hove (Chapter 11), and a Befriending Scheme for people with mental health problems in Hastings (Chapter 12). The discussion in these chapters is reminiscent of the debates in the 1980s on community-based social work, patch-based working, community development or community action, volunteers or professionals, formal services or informal care. But the context is tighter than the 1980s: there is a lack of confidence in the capacity of statutory services, as well as lack of funds; volunteers are seen as necessary for service provision, but without an understanding of the nature of reciprocity and cooperative action underpinning care.

The collection ends with three more policy-focused chapters on the shifting arrangements for community care and the changing forms of civic engagement in Sweden, Germany and Japan.

This is a challenging and provocative book. It brings together a wide range of material and perspectives. That said, one criticism is that it is too much of a mixed bag: it sets out common themes, but does not work hard enough to integrate the different contributions. What, for example, could the practice-based accounts learn from the international ‘stand-alone’ chapters?

A second criticism is more important: the collection's skimpy treatment of history. And this is surprising, given that a number of the contributors (including the editors) have been key players in ‘community’ and ‘community care’ for many years (see, for example, Mayo, Reference Mayo1994). The concept of ‘community’ itself has a rather narrow treatment. There is a tantalising reference to what we might call ‘community novels’ with the example of V. S. Naipaul in relation to ‘community and diversity’, but nothing about the rich tradition in neighbourhood studies of ‘community documentaries’ (see Smith, Reference Smith and Edwards2008: 198, note 6). There is little analysis of the different meanings of and approaches to ‘community care’ and ‘care in or care by the community’ as set out by Philip Abrams in his seminal research (Reference Abrams, Barnes and Connolly1978), or of the differences and tensions between volunteer care and informal care, or of pioneering projects such as the Kent Community Care Project studied by Bleddyn Davies and David Challis. And more in-depth discussion of the patch-based work and community social work adopted so enthusiastically in the 1980s – indeed in some of the areas presented in this book – would have been illuminating (Hadley and McGrath, Reference Hadley and McGrath1980 and Reference Hadley and McGrath1984; Bayley et al., Reference Bayley, Seyd and Tennant1989; Smith, Reference Smith1989).

The loss of history may be disheartening, but it should not obscure the heartening nature of this collection: its' clear presentation of some examples of practice and policy, and its' clear message about the importance of collective approaches to care in a difficult political, financial and ideological climate. I hope we may take this as ‘work in progress’, with more to come.