Victorian Minds: A Study of Intellectuals in Crisis and Ideologies in Transition

by Gertrude Himmelfarb

Where "Victorianism" once conjured up an image of smugness, hypocrisy, and mindlessness, it now suggests quite the an age of high intellectual, moral, and spiritual tension, in which the typical problems of modernity were posed in their most acute forms. Gertrude Himmelfarb's distinguished piece of intellectual history explores these tensions and problems with sympathy, candor, and critical subtlety. Victorian Minds is a study of intellectuals in crisis and of ideologies in transition, rendered with an elegance of style and thought. "Few works that I know convey the excitement of the intellectual life of 19th-century England as immediately. ... The essays are remarkable no less for the cogency of their wit than for the range and precision of their scholarship"―Lionel Trilling. "Precise and discriminating ... an exemplary study of the 19th century and a superb introduction to the 20th."―Robert A. Nisbet. "Miss Himmelfarb is a writer to whom the organization of ideas into intricate shapes and patterns is imperative, and like many of her subjects-and comparatively few modern intellectuals-she is capable of poised and meaningful generalization."― A. S. Byatt.

Genres: History, Essays, European History, Biography

392 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1995

About the author

Gertrude Himmelfarb, also known as Bea Kristol, was an American historian. She was a leader and conservative interpretations of history and historiography. She wrote extensively on intellectual history, with a focus on Britain and the Victorian era, as well as on contemporary society and culture.

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here are essays on Edmund Burke, Jeremy Bentham, Malthus, as well as Lord Acton John Buchan and a number of others. The concluding essays deal more with the ideas and Ideologies of the Victorians, which have been somewhat misunderstood. All of Mrs Himmelfarb's work is worth our attention on this volume is no exception to that rule.