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This article examines the work of Lady Nancy Astor (1879–1964) in campaigning for nursery education and nursery schools in Britain from the late 1920s until the Second World War. Arguably no elected politician in England at any time, including the present, has identified themselves more closely with the cause of nursery schooling in Britain. Historiography that focuses on the impact of exceptional “pioneers” is frequently hagiographical and emphasizes the actions of charismatic figures at the expense of contexts and the hidden political, economic, and social forces operating within them. The main assumption underlying the approach here is that individuals are themselves shaped by social relations and that their capacity to impact on events depends on the structure of social relations and their place within them. This formulation, although derived mainly from debates within Marxist theory, shares affinities with the work of Pierre Bourdieu, who saw society as constituted by fields in which agents endowed with varying amounts of economic, cultural, and symbolic capital compete for scarce material and symbolic goods in “a general economy of practices.”

KENSINGTON and Chelsea council is about to have quite a fight on its hands. It has received a complaint about rubbish in one of London's smartest shopping streets - from a member of one of Britain's most famous dynasties. Lady Astor, wife of William [Waldorf Astor], fourth Viscount Astor, has taken up cudgels on behalf of traders in Beauchamp Place in Knightsbridge, and it is hard to imagine her emerging from the fray as anything but the victor. The thoroughfare - home to the San Lorenzo restaurant, designer clothing outlets, jewellers and beauty salons - sometimes looks \"like a wave of drunken hooligans have passed through\", in Lady Astor's witheringly direct words.

Born in Danville, Va., to parents busy recovering losses brought on by the Civil War, Nancy, willful and sporty as a child, escaped an unhappy early marriage and arrived in London in 1904, divorced and accompanied by her small son, Bobbie.

Petersen reviews \"From Plymouth to Parliament: A Rhetorical History of Nancy Astor's 1919 Campaign\" by Karen Musolf.

Bertolini reviews Bernard Shaw and Nancy Astor: Selected Correspondence of Bernard Shaw edited by J. P. Wearing.

\"From Plymouth to Parliament: A Rhetorical History of Nancy Astor's 1919 Campaign\" by Karen J. Musolf is reviewed.

Fort does justice to the remarkable life of [Nancy], Lady Astor, the first woman to be elected as a member of Parliament. An American divorcée, Nancy Langhorne Shaw burst upon the staid Edwardian scene, parlaying her beauty, wit, and unabashed boldness into one of the most brilliant marriages of the 1906 London season.

Allen reviews Eminent Georgians: The Lives of King George V, Elizabeth Bowen, St. John Philby, & Nancy Astor by John Halperin.

Einsohn reviews Bernard Shaw and Nancy Astor by Bernard Shaw and edited by J. P. Wearing.