Hypocrisy and the Politics of Politeness: Manners and Morals from Locke to Austen

by Jenny Davidson

Jenny Davidson demonstrates how the arguments that define hypocrisy as a moral and political virtue thrived in eighteenth-century Britain's culture of politeness. However, Davidson also concludes that eighteenth-century writers from Locke to Austen believed that the public practice of vice was far more dangerous for society than discrepancies between what people say and do in private.

Genres: History

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Jenny Davidson is a professor at Columbia University and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is the author of the novel HEREDITY (2003); two YA novels, THE EXPLOSIONIST (2008) and INVISIBLE THINGS (2010); and several academic books.