Victorian Values

by James Walvin

Book by Walvin, James

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Historical, Victorian

182 pages, Paperback

First published April 9, 1987

About the author

James Walvin taught for many years at the University of York where he is now Professor of History Emeritus. He also held visiting positions in the Caribbean, the U.S.A. and Australia. He won the prestigious Martin Luther King Memorial Prize for his book Black and White, and has published widely on the history of slavery and the slave trade. His book The People's Game was a pioneering study of the history of football and remains in print thirty years after its first publication.

Reviews

[Wealhtheow · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is purportedly an examination of "Victorian values," but in reality it is mostly a neat history of urban social problems and how Victorians dealt with them. Most of what we now think of as western civilization came about during Victoria's reign: labor unions, public libraries, trains, compulsory schooling for children, labor laws, newspapers, the police force, sociological studies...It is absolutely fascinating to read about where each of these came from, and how they developed from there. I recommend this book purely for those chapters, because the others are a mess. Walvin seems unable to recognize hypocrisy when he sees it, and instead of saying, "wow, Victorians had varied and generally twisted views of sex" he says, "well, not all of them burned nude paintings, and men swam nude, so therefore Victorians weren't prudes." Um, no. Just accept that the Victorians were a wee screwy and we'll move on to their awesome charity work, 'k? (Walvin makes some great points relating to charities--upper class Victorians assumed that the poor were destitute through their own poor choices, and tried to help them in a piecemeal fashion. Their attempts to educate the populace and get them away from excess drinking were ineffective, but increased literacy (compulsory schooling) and a larger range of entertainments (increased travel and consumerism) were what actually turned the tide.)

One final quote from the book: "We need to recognize that many of the 'values' were developed as a response to a contemporary problem or difficulty, not as the outcome of a prevailing Victorian strength or achievement."