Victorian America and the Civil War examines the relationship between American Victorian culture and the Civil War. The author argues that at the heart of American Victorian culture was Romanticism, a secular quest to answer questions previously settled by traditional religion. In examining the biographies of seventy-five Americans who lived in the antebellum and Civil War eras, elements of disequilibrium, passion and intellectual excitement are explored in contrast to the traditional view of Victorian self-control and moral assurance. The Civil War is shown to be a central event in the cultural life of the American Victorians, which both was an environment for the resolution of their questions and a place where their values and aspirations could be reshaped. Anne Rose is the author of the award-winning book Transcendentalism as a Social Movement, 1830–1850.
Format:
CONTRIBUTORS: Anne C. Rose
EAN: 9780521478830
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
PAGES:
WEIGHT: 443 g
HEIGHT: 226 cm
PUBLISHED BY: Cambridge University Press
DATE PUBLISHED: 1994-09-30
CITY:
GENRE: HISTORY / United States / 19th Century
WIDTH: 152 cm
SPINE:
Book Themes:
United States of America, USA, c 1500 onwards to present day, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, c 1860 to c 1869, History of the Americas, Specific wars and campaigns, Civil wars
"Exciting books and articles have continued to appear in recent years that take the study of the Civil War in new directions. Anne C. Rose's Victorian America and the Civil War does just that....The introduction--perhaps the most thorough I have ever read--defines the study's terms and explains the author's agenda....merits a wide scholarly reading." The Annals of Iowa, "...a significant contribution to American studies, breaking new ground in our understanding of those 'influentials' who became secular zealots, even hedonists, and who saw war as another medium for self-gratification." Journal of the American Studies Association of Texas, "No summary can do justice to the rich insight, careful analysis, and historiographic sophistication of Rose's text....As a study of Victorian culture, this work cannot be surpassed." Reviews in American History, "This is a highly engaging and humane piece of cultural history, whose greatest strength is its sensitivity both to individual lives and to the larger patterns of behavior and values revealed in those lives." Karen Halttunen, University of California, Davis, "Through a study of seventy-five white, middle-class Victorians, Anne C. Rose has created a compelling portrait of Civil War era American culture. Her 'Victorian Moment' is an ingenious inquiry into middle-class culture and how the Civil War changed or amplified trends that had begun a decade or two earlier." Donald Yacovone, Journal of the Early Republic
