Interest in the history of working-class credit has grown considerably over the past twenty years, in relation to both the pre-nineteenth-century origins of pawning and the development of consumer credit in the second half of the twentieth century. In Britain, the past decade particularly has seen a new generation of scholars considering how the credit landscape changed after the Second World War, as is well reflected in studies such as Avram Taylor’s examination of working-class credit in north-east England, Working Class Credit and Community since 1918 (London, 2002). Sean O’Connell extends this literature by offering an ambitious broader study, whose contribution is especially significant in relation to the postwar history of credit trading in Britain.

Consumer credit in working-class communities has traditionally been very dependent on personal relationships and social networks, and O’Connell highlights how credit methods and dealings in such neighborhoods changed over his period of study with the decline of community-based arrangements and the emergence of more impersonal forms of credit. He explores the complex interweaving of mutuality and self-interest in credit relationships and the continuing importance of familiarity, personal contacts, and community networks in the credit practices of the financially excluded. The success of mail-order companies in the 1950s and 1960s, for example, based on neighborhood networks of female agents, owed much to the reciprocal and obligatory cultural and economic conventions that were such an established part of traditional working-class credit relationships. O’Connell relates these themes to theoretical debates about cultural aspects of credit exchange and patterns of reciprocity and obligation, although he could have done rather more to address the structural inequalities that perpetuate the particular forms of credit exchange the book describes.

Credit and Community is particularly effective when discussing the character of developments in the second half of the twentieth century, including key moments of transition in the 1970s and particularly the 1980s. O’Connell delineates the changing credit landscape of tallymen and check traders as they increasingly moved into money lending from the 1960s to accommodate the credit needs of the financially excluded, as their best working-class customers drifted away with increased spending power and the emergence of a broader range of credit alternatives. He makes a telling contrast between commercial forms of credit and co-operative alternatives such as mutuality clubs and credit unions, and his account is particularly valuable in chronicling the impact of postwar immigration upon credit patterns, especially in relation to the immigrant (Irish and Caribbean) origins of many credit unions. As the book emphasizes, a continuing theme in the history of consumer credit has been the difficulty of developing effective legislation in relation to the poorest, riskiest borrowers with the highest records of default and slow payment, whose poverty and marginality left them largely unaffected by the educational emphases of postwar consumer protection.

O’Connell effectively synthesizes a range of recent historical interpretations and histories of consumer credit, offering a skillful interweaving of social, cultural, and business history. The book is theoretically informed with a strong empirical base, a notable strength being its use of an impressive range of previously underused sources, including business records from companies providing credit in working-class communities; mutual credit institutions, such as co-operative retailers; the credit union movement; rotating credit associations; and government papers. Company archives, trade journals, parliamentary investigations, and legislative and commercial histories are effectively complemented by oral testimony from both sides of the credit divide to provide a rich and textured account of credit use among poor working-class borrowers.

Despite a cautious approach to issues of structural inequality, Credit and Community is an important contribution to antipoverty discussions and antidebt debates. O’Connell has written a socially engaged and timely book that should be of particular interest to students of twentieth-century social, cultural, and business history and the social sciences and, indeed, is of broader relevance to anyone concerned with the worsening financial struggles of the poor and the widening gap between rich and poor in contemporary Britain.