As a lifelong socialist, Shaw believed that economic inequality was a poison destroying every aspect of human life, perverting family affections and the relations between the sexes. According to him, all British institutions were corrupted at the root by pecuniary interest and idealism, integrity and any piecemeal attempts at political reform were futile in the face of the gross injustice built into the Empires economic system.

Begun in 1924 the year of the British Labour Partys first period of office under Ramsay MacDonald (who hailed it as the worlds most important book since the Bible) and first published in 1928, The Intelligent Womans Guide draws on Shaws decades of activism and remains a brilliant, thoughtprovoking classic of political propaganda.