This book has offered a journey through the history, since the 1960s, of the movements combatting violence against women, especially domestic violence, mainly in the countries of the UK, but in other countries too, with some emphasis on transnational activism. The coverage has been brief, and, inevitably, issues have had to be left out or abbreviated. It has been impossible to fit everything in.

The book has highlighted the bravery and tenacity of those who made these women's struggles. And it has celebrated the passion and dedication that gave rise to services on domestic and sexual violence, and to the later developments. It has aimed to valorise these achievements and the individual activists who made them, sometimes by name (although many others, equally deserving of recognition, have regretfully had to be left out). The idea has been to tell the story of how it all started and developed – in order to remember it for the future. A few poems and anecdotes have, hopefully, enriched the mood, while not detracting from this distressingly painful subject.

In the last 50 years, a loose network of activists across almost every country in the world has arisen, and they have not shrunk from reacting to domestic violence, sexual violence, ‘honour’-based violence, femicide, psychological violence, coercive control, rape in war and conflict zones, sexual slavery, terror against women, and so much more. The book has aimed to showcase the transformations that have been achieved, from which we can learn as we go forward. There is a danger of overlooking them – of not remembering.

Some of the issues to recall – and, perhaps, indeed to learn from – include the power and exhilaration of collective working and ideas for how to make it effective. They include the possibility of reclaiming, and using, the political organising techniques of consciousness-raising. Raising the voices of abuse survivors and informing everything with their views have been enduring principles to which we need always to return. And we can learn, too, from the thrill of being part of a dynamic social movement which must be one of the greatest human experiences.

The book especially tells the story of the innovative, early days of the domestic violence (and rape crisis) movements in this country. This is becoming forgotten women's history – the passion and radical innovation of those days.