Prof. Penelope Ismay is awarded The Stansky Book Prize

The Stansky Book Prize is awarded annually by the North American Conference on British Studies for the best book published anywhere by a North American scholar on any aspect of British studies since 1800.  

Penelope Ismay, Trust Among Strangers: Friendly Societies in Modern Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

Ismay’s study of friendly societies explores Britain's transition to industrial modernity by problematizing the concept of mutuality. She demonstrates how friendly societies evolved practices of sociability and reciprocity in order to cultivate belonging among working-class people who were, and would remain, unknown to each other. Deeply researched and engagingly written, Ismay explores the problem of trust in a modernizing society from the "ground up," challenging the idea of the independent, economically rational Liberal subject. Ismay’s book provides a rich understanding of theories of responsibility to others and the nature of mutual self-help as it was practiced in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, arguing for friendly societies’ lasting impact on collectivist approaches to welfare well into the twentieth century.

The Stansky Book Prize 2019 - North American Conference on British Studies

BC News,  "BC historian wins 'best book' prize", December 17, 2019