ABSTRACT
This book has drawn its inspiration from three main sources. First, there has been a desire on my part to bring together key findings from a series of research projects on rural poverty, homelessness and other welfare issues that I have undertaken in different parts of Britain over the last ten years or so within the covers of a single text. A second source of inspiration has been the absence of a book that sets out the scale, nature, experiences and welfare contexts of rural poverty in Britain in a comprehensive and rigorous manner. The suggestion by a reviewer of the original book proposal that the book could usefully extend its coverage to rural poverty in the United States was at first greeted with a great deal of apprehension. However, the incorporation of this comparative approach has no doubt broadened the scope of the book and produced some interesting findings on the nature of rural poverty in Britain and the United States. Finally, and probably the most significant driving force behind the production of this book and my more general involvement in social welfare work, has been a personal conviction that the continued existence of poverty in contemporary society is morally wrong.
