The social policy tradition, for good reason, has largely been about minimising social harms – ‘squalor, ignorance, want, idleness, disease’ – so what does the recent social scientific turn to ‘happiness’ have to offer to social policy scholars interested in promoting good lives and the good society? This is the subject of discussion in Neil Thin's new book on ‘social happiness’.

There has been a surge in scholarship relating to happiness and subjective well-being (SWB) in the social sciences in recent years. At the individual-level, researchers have focused on the determinants of SWB or they have considered national policies at the macro-level, but Neil Thin's new work adopts a rather different and more original position. Social Happiness helps to shine some fresh light on the policy-related discourse occupying the meso-level or middle ground in which ‘social happiness’ is culturally and socially produced, through the everyday interactions in families, schools, neighbourhoods or the workplace for example. The task according to Thin is to make social policy that is more explicitly directed towards human happiness – something we may perhaps have (mistakenly) just assumed we had always done, or at least had attempted to do.

Social Happiness is organised into two main parts. Part one introduces the scholarship on happiness, covering history and the latest developments and themes in policy and moral discourse. The happiness lens, Thin argues, can be applied to various aspects of the policy process, from policy analysis to the choice of indicators for evaluation. For those already working in the field of happiness, this may be familiar territory; for students of social science, however, and social scientists thinking of bringing some happiness into their research, then this first part does offer a useful and thorough review of developments.

The real interest, for me at least, lies in the originality of the work presented in part two which discusses social happiness in (middle-level remember) policy and practice. Here Thin considers the policy interplay between happiness scholarship and the diversity of social life and experience. This really is uncharted territory as far as happiness scholarship is concerned, and Thin deserves praise for attempting to take it forward for the benefit of social policy academics and practitioners – although some ‘think-tanks’ in the UK have been pursuing this line of inquiry for some time, in their reports on well-being and local community development (e.g. Mguni and Bacon, Reference Mguni and Bacon2010; Stoll et al., Reference Stoll, Michaelson and Seaford2012; Wallace and Schmuecker, Reference Wallace and Schmuecker2012).

Nevertheless, there is plenty of original scholarship in Social Happiness. In Chapter 9, for example, we find research on the nature of love and the benefits of intimacy reviewed, along with policies and techniques for promoting intimacy, in view of relations between parent and child, in marriage, in work–family relations, in response to sex education or responding to abuse for instance – we know every society policies love, but who has ever heard of ‘love policies’ asks Neil Thin? These are the sorts of teasing questions for inspiring a fresh approach to Social Policy advocated by social happiness.

And what about hope for the future discussed in Chapter 10? Here we discover what insights social psychology might offer for the development of new social policies for promoting hope, trust and collective self-esteem. Then in Chapter 11 there are lessons from the new science of happiness for policies on positive parenting and non-parenting (voluntary or not). In Chapter 12, we find potential lessons and insights from happiness scholars for schooling, including the organisation of time, resources and the school curricula. Policies for happiness in the workplace (Chapter 14) and in later life (Chapter 16) feature. As such, the text will be a useful resource for policymakers and community development practitioners alike. Can we really orientate consumer society in order to square the circle between self-interest and virtue through the market? Perhaps – shopping for happiness, consumption ethics and corporate social responsibility are all considered in Chapter 15.

There may be good grounds, however, for Journal of Social Policy readers to doubt or object to some of this new ‘utilitarian’ thinking. Arguably, Social Happiness could have made more of the (many) issues and tensions presented by the new happiness agenda being claimed for social policy. A more critical reflection and discussion of the possible limits of this agenda would have helped the balance. We confront some of the tensions and moral quandaries between happiness and social justice in relation to gender reforms in Chapter 13: the happiness lens could have a radical influence in reviving feminism we are told (p. 193), but it will be resisted by those who see feminism as an essentially gloomy, win–lose struggle against injustice – surely a point for discussion if ever there was.

There is good reason to recommend Social Happiness, not least for bringing some badly needed focus to the topic of social well-being rather than the more familiar discourse about well-being derived though individual choice, but also for the originality of the review and for highlighting key issues facing contemporary social policy. The book is certainly timely. In the UK, much of the responsibility for securing improvements in well-being is now being devolved to the local level. Local service providers are now required to work together to reflect the well-being needs of their local community and they must agree the priorities for addressing these needs in order to secure improved well-being outcomes (DH, 2011).

Social Happiness also makes a real concerted effort to venture beyond Western societies by considering evidence and prospects for the application of happiness in a wide range of contexts – reflecting the author's broader interest in sustainable development. The lack of critical distance in the review of scholarship on offer here is an issue at times, while the disputed and rapidly changing evidence or knowledge-base in this field however makes Social Happiness a good place to begin further forays into the ever-expanding field of happiness studies. While work in local communities to eradicate poverty, deprivation, illiteracy, crime, ageism, are still central to securing social well-being (ACSS, 2010).