World poverty; New policies to defeat an old enemy

Edited by Peter Townsend and David Gordon, The Polity Press, 454 pages, paperback, £25.00

During the last half century, the conventional wisdom was that poverty could be diminished automatically by economic growth. This has turned out not to be true as poverty has been rising worldwide, leading to increasing polarisation and social exclusion.

The book points out that, in Europe, only Spain, Portugal and Ireland exceeded the UK average of 20% living in poverty.

It examines the results of this growing phenomenon, where more and more families with dependent children were caught in the poverty trap, particularly those with single parents. And the results of "means testing" benefits, both here and elsewhere, are a lot to do with it.