Prologue: Victorian Social Science in a Twentieth-Century World Introduction to Victorian Poverty Studies Two Royal Commissions Protestant Paradigms in Victorian Poverty Studies Political Economy and the New Poor Law From Political Economy to Social Science Ignoble Savages on Relief: Social Darwinism in Late Victorian Poverty Studies Science and Pseudoscience in Victorian and Edwardian Poverty Studies Three Case Studies in a priori Social Science Unanswered Questions, Unasked Questions, and an Experimental Counter-Hypothesis Why Critique the Victorian Social Science of Poverty? Notes Bibliography Index

KATHLEEN CALLANAN MARTIN is Professor in the College of General Studies at Boston University, USA. Drawing on her background in both sociology and history, she examines in her research the interplay of culture, theory and methodology in social science. She received her MA in Sociology from Ohio State University and her Ph D in Comparative History from Brandeis University.