Product Description

Contrasting the Victorian system of virtues--respectability, self-help, discipline, cleanliness, obedience, orderliness--with the opportunistic, superficial morality of modern society, an intellectual historian calls for a deeper commitment to moral responsibility. 12,500 first printing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #483624 in Books
• Published on: 1995-02-07
• Released on: 1995-02-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 314 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Although Himmelfarb concedes that Victorian England was rife with class rigidity, discrimination and hypocrisy, she nevertheless believes Victorian society has much to teach us because it preserved a core of "virtues" such as hard work, self-reliance and deferral of gratification. The compartmentalization of the sexes into separate spheres of activity in that era was more flexible than is generally acknowledged, she argues, pointing to women's involvement in social work, education, government and philanthropy. Professor emeritus of history at the City University of New York, Himmelfarb draws on oral histories, memoirs, newspapers and the writings and personal behavior of William Gladstone, John Stuart Mill, Anthony Trollope, H.G. Wells, Oscar Wilde and others to bolster her arguments. Her challenging study urges liberals and conservatives to move beyond moral relativism in addressing such problems as crime, illiteracy, poverty, welfare and substance abuse.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Himmelfarb, professor emeritus of history at CUNY and the author of several works on Victorian England, including most recently Poverty and Compassion: The Moral Imagination of the Late Victorians (LJ 7/91), here contrasts the Victorian "virtues" of respectability, self-help, orderliness, cleanliness, and obedience with today's vague concept of "values." The author debunks the popular perception of Victorians as repressed and materialistic. Instead, according to Himmelfarb, their "manners and morals" created a society that emphasized a strong family life for all classes and gave rise to a prosperous economy and the early feminist and social service movements. Furthermore, the influence of these virtues caused the incidence of illegitimate births and violent crimes to drop significantly and remain low until the 1960s. This provocative and important book is recommended for all academic and large public libraries.?Kathryn Moore Crowe, Univ. of North Carolina Lib., Greensboro
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
When in 1983 Margaret Thatcher enthusiastically replied, "Oh exactly," to an interviewer's snippy remark that she seemed to approve of "Victorian values," she touched off the heated contemporary discussion of values that luckily has eventuated in this superb reconsideration of Victorian moral attitudes. What we call--thanks to the secularizing influences of Nietzsche and Weber--values, Victorians called virtues. In their minds, those included dedication to family, hard work, thrift, cleanliness, self-reliance, self-respect (which is not similar to modern self-esteem), neighborliness, and patriotism. Drawing on a panoply of the foremost Victorian social critics and commentators as well as historical statistics, Himmelfarb demonstrates that especially English but also U.S. nineteenth-century society was exceptionally socially minded. The working class and the poor strove to live by the same moral standards the middle and even the upper classes observed, and the result was a social order in which schooling spread, incomes rose, outsiders, especially Jews, were assimilated and often admired, women's rights expanded, and crime rates fell--all while urbanization and industrialization boomed and, indeed, demonstrably made England "a more civil, more pacific, more humane society." Neither puritanical nor hypocritical, the moral Victorian era stands in sharp contrast to "de-moralized" post-World War II England and America, as Himmelfarb shows in a long epilogue that ends in hopes for a new reformation that "will restore not so much Victorian values as a more abiding sense of moral and civic virtues." This is intellectual history and historically based argument as good as they get. Ray Olson

Customer Reviews

Wonderful Professor Himmelfarb!
At last, a readable, non-revisionist, and quite relevant discussion of the history of our "moral" system. Professor Himmelfarb is an excellent writer who makes history for nonhistorians come alive. I will never again read Keats, Shelley, Wells, or Mill without placing them in the historical context presented in this book. It is a relief to know that some realism remains in the debauched, angst-filled, revisionist halls of modern academia. This is a wonderful book!

Ms. Himmelfarb Does It Again
Gertrude Himmelfarb provides an interesting and thought-provoking analysis of the Victorian Age. Her formidable logic, study, and sources enable her to break down the stereotypes of Victoria's Britain. In doing so, she constructs a far more realistic, fair, and honest portrayl of Victoria's reign. Do not be fooled, Ms. Himmelfarb does not simply lavish praise on the past and turn her nose up at modern culture; she provides a reasoned and valuable look at the two times.

This book should be read by anyone who seeks to understand where we have been and where we are going.

Victorian Virtues Trump Modern "Values!"
I was brought up to think of all things Victorian as stuffy, repressed and backward. It was a pleasant surprise to realize that far from being a social wilderness, Victorian England and America had much about them to admire.

The belief in God, country, indisputable truths, and loyalty to family were the hallmarks of the Victorians. It is regrettable that in our own time we have no constant stars to guide us as our recent forbears had.

The advances in medicine and science are all good. But it sad that with all these scientific advances, people feel more isolated and insecure than the erstwhile Victorians encumbered with all the constraints of that age.