Those of us who have been pressing for meaningful reform of adult social care in the UK for 25 fruitless years must accept not only that we have failed, but also that we have failed to raise the level of the debate much above an annual knockabout over funding. The two go hand in hand: had we succeeded in capturing the imagination of politicians and the public in what real independent living could look and feel like for older people and for all those living with disability, we would by now surely have secured a breakthrough.The struggle goes on, however, and this important study offers a timely opportunity to reinvigorate and deepen our thinking about the contribution of care and support in the modern world. And 'world' is the operative term, for while the authors take the UK experience as their focus, the lessons they draw apply internationally as social care seeks to claim its rightful place in emerging global green and well-being agendas.Peter Beresford and Colin Slasberg bring usefully complementary perspectives as, respectively, a service user and academic and a senior care manager and consultant. Their home truths may make tough reading for many in and around social care, not least the observation that, for all our efforts to boost its status, it remains a public service backwater, "notoriously obscure". Some will also take issue with the authors' largely negative verdict on the working in England of personal budgets, one of the few genuine innovations in care and support in recent years.But there is no doubt that social care has suffered, and continues to suffer, from its isolation, from being something that most people engage with only when they need to and very often when they are in crisis. As the book argues, the challenge is to bring it in from the margins and place it at the heart of our economic planning as a universalist, person-centred and rights-based policy and as a vehicle for serious public investment. Less a burden, more an economic and social wealth generator.Can we be optimistic? As the authors argue, there are strong currents taking us in the right direction. One is the sheer demographics: globally, there are rapidly growing numbers of disabled and older people. A second is the mounting pressure for environmental sustainability, forcing re-evaluation