The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain: 1789-1837
by Ben Wilson
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Description
"Ben Wilson's The Making of Victorian Values is the history of an era rather like our own - a time when dissenters and rebels were hemmed in by conformists and hardheaded authoritarians, a time when a nation on the eve of global domination fretted about its future. It was, however, a period when those who argued that a British empire would be a disaster for liberty were eventually squashed by imperialists, just as those who railed against mindless materialism were in the end rolled over by show more industrialists and the promoters of luxury goods. The Making of Victorian Values reveals an era when people were obsessed with the need to appear authentic, and yet forever had doubts about who was and who wasn't - concerns familiar to the "me" age we know so well." "Wilson begins with the libertine spirit inspired by Byron, Shelley, and the Romantics; he ends with the rise and eventual victory of stolid middle-class values. The result is a radical tour de force, a reworking of the pre-Victorian age. Once portrayed by Paul Johnson in his bestselling The Birth of the Modern as the years when virtue finally trumped corruption, Wilson reveals a far more compelling story - and a more engrossing and scandalous one, too. It is a story about hypochondriacs and cranks, killjoys and dandies, rakes and priests, advocates of free-speech and those against it - people who were made awestruck by Britain's emerging role as the economic and political powerhouse of the world, but who were also deeply anxious about the responsibilities a vast empire might require."--Jacket. show lessTags
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Author Information
6 Works 1,039 Members
Common Knowledge
- Alternate titles
- Decency and Disorder: The Age of Cant 1789-1837
- Original publication date
- 2007
- Important events
- Accession of Victoria (1837)
- Epigraph
- 'My dear friend, clear your mind of cant ... you may talk in this manner; it is the mode of talking in society; but don't think foolishly.' Dr Johnson
- Dedication
- To MCW
- First words
- William Palfry, a recent graduate of Cambridge, paraded naked along the side of a canal on a summer's day in 1818, loudly proclaiming that 'he would not put on his clothes for any man living'.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)As the great German philosopher rightly said, 'Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing straight was ever fashioned.'
Classifications
- Genres
- History, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 941.07 — History & geography History of Europe British Isles Historical periods of British Isles 1714-1837 Period of House of Hanover
- LCC
- DA520 .W55 — History of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania Great Britain History of Great Britain England History By period Modern, 1485- George III, 1760-1820
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 281
- Popularity
- 115,183
- Rating
- (3.77)
- Languages
- English, Japanese
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 4
