Sex, Sects and Society: ‘Pain and Pleasure’: A Social History of Wales and the Welsh, 1870-1945

In an extended account of national identity, this second volume of Pain and Pleasure provides the first detailed study of the sexual and spiritual life of Wales in the period 1870-1945. Russell Davies argues that although Wales and its people experienced a disenchantment of the spiritual world during this time, a sexual revolution also was taking place. This innovative study examines how advances in life expectancy and improvements in health were reflected in emotional life and, though the Welsh have been long regarded as emotionally repressed, it shows that they were in reality a free and fun-loving people to contrast the traditional emphasis upon hardship and hardscrabble experiences. Educational and entertaining, Sex, Sects and Society offers a detailed study of the contradictions and complexities of the Welsh national identity.