From one of today's most respected historians and cultural critics comes a new book examining the gulf in American society--a division that cuts across class, racial, ethnic, political and sexual lines. One side originated in the tradition of republican virtue, the other in the counterculture of the late 1960s. Himmelfarb argues that, while the latter generated the dominant culture of today-particularly in universities, journalism, television, and film--a "dissident culture" continues to promote the values of family, a civil society, sexual morality, privacy, and patriotism. Proposing...
From one of today's most respected historians and cultural critics comes a new book examining the gulf in American society--a division that cuts acros...
For this updated edition of her acclaimed work on historians and the writing of history, Gertrude Himmelfarb adds four insightful and provocative essays dealing with changes in the discipline over the past twenty years.
In examining the effects of postmodernism, the illusions of cosmopolitanism, A. J. P. Taylor and revisionism, and Francis Fukuyama's "end of history," Himmelfarb enriches her illuminating exploration of the myriad ways--new and old--in which historians make sense of the past.
For this updated edition of her acclaimed work on historians and the writing of history, Gertrude Himmelfarb adds four insightful and provocative e...
In a provocative study that bristles with contemporary relevance, Himmelfarb demonstrates that the material and moral dimensions of poverty were inseparable in the minds of late Victorians, be they radical or conservative.
In a provocative study that bristles with contemporary relevance, Himmelfarb demonstrates that the material and moral dimensions of poverty were insep...
In these provocative essays, one of our most distinguished historians looks into the abyss of the present. Himmelfarb exposes the intellectual and spiritual impoverishment of some of our most fashionable current ideas--and shows how the vogue for historical structuralism has made it possible to trivialize the tragedy of the Holocaust.
In these provocative essays, one of our most distinguished historians looks into the abyss of the present. Himmelfarb exposes the intellectual and spi...
In an elegant, eminently readable work, one of our most distinguished intellectual historians gives us a brilliant revisionist history. The Roads to Modernity reclaims the Enlightenment-an extraordinary time bursting with new ideas about human nature, politics, society, and religion--from historians who have downgraded its importance and from scholars who have given preeminence to the Enlightenment in France over concurrent movements in England and America.Contrasting the Enlightenments in the three nations, Himmelfarb demonstrates the primacy and wisdom of the British, exemplified in...
In an elegant, eminently readable work, one of our most distinguished intellectual historians gives us a brilliant revisionist history. The Roads t...
In her enduring study of the impact of Darwinism on the intellectual climate of the nineteenth century, Gertrude Himmelfarb brings massive documentation to bear in challenging the conventional view of Darwin's greatness. Touching on biography, history, and philosophy, she traces the origins and development of Darwin's views against the opinions of his time; assesses the influences on him; and shows what he intended his theory to mean, what his readers took it to mean, and what it has in fact meant. By such a route Ms. Himmelfarb recaptures "a sense of how a scientist, with the most innocent...
In her enduring study of the impact of Darwinism on the intellectual climate of the nineteenth century, Gertrude Himmelfarb brings massive documentati...
In these brilliant essays, Gertrude Himmelfarb, one of America s most respected scholars of Victorian thought and culture, explores the many facets, public and private, of the Victorian idea of morality. Incisively and provocatively she illuminates the "moral imagination" of the Victorians, "the imagination that treasured the complexity of the heart and mind and that sought, by aesthetic means as well as ethical, to adorn and enhance rather than destroy the 'decent drapery of life.'" The conventional view of Victorianism a Family Shakespeare purged of indelicacies, piano legs sheathed in...
In these brilliant essays, Gertrude Himmelfarb, one of America s most respected scholars of Victorian thought and culture, explores the many facets, p...
Contrasting the Enlightenments in the three nations, this book demonstrates the primacy and wisdom of the British, exemplified in such thinkers as Adam Smith, David Hume, and Edmund Burke, as well as the enduring contributions of the American Founders.
Contrasting the Enlightenments in the three nations, this book demonstrates the primacy and wisdom of the British, exemplified in such thinkers as Ada...
None of the stereotypes of Victorian England--narrow-minded, inhibited, moralistic, complacent--prepares us for the vitality, variety, and above all extraordinary quality of intellectual life displayed in this volume of essays. Selected and annotated by Gertrude Himmelfarb, a distinguished historian of Victorian thought, the writings address a wide range of subjects--religion, politics, history, science, art, socialism, and feminism--by eminent figures of the era, including Carlyle, Mill, Macaulay, Dickens, Eliot, Thackeray, Newman, Arnold, and Wilde. The selections reflect what Himmelfarb...
None of the stereotypes of Victorian England--narrow-minded, inhibited, moralistic, complacent--prepares us for the vitality, variety, and above all e...
This is one of the most important books ever published about the American university. Robert Nisbet accuses universities of having betrayed themselves. Over the centuries they earned the respect of society by attempting to remain faithful to what he terms "the academic dogma," the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The measure of a university's greatness and of the stature of an individual scholar was determined not by the immediate usefulness of the work done, but by how much it contributed to scholarship, learning, and teaching.
American universities abandoned this ideal,...
This is one of the most important books ever published about the American university. Robert Nisbet accuses universities of having betrayed themsel...
