Ian Bradley's "The Optimists "was first published in 1980, when
the values of Victorian Liberalism were enjoying something of a
renaissance - as they are today. Politicians of different parties
were once again expounding the Gladstonian principles of public
economy, self-help, European unity and home rule for the
constituent parts of the United Kingdom.
This book examines the nature and development of these ideas. It
traces their origins in the Romantic movement, the industrial
revolution and the general European Liberal awakening of the
mid-nineteenth century and charts their collapse in the face of the
predominance of class attitudes and the increasingly bitter clash
of capital and labour at the end of the century.
During its heyday, from the mid-1850s to the mid-1880s,
Liberalism attracted many eminent Victorians, including leading
literary figures like Anthony Trollope, George Meredith and William
Makepeace Thackeray, as well as philosophers like John Stuart Mill,
Lord Acton, Richard Cobden, John Bright, T. H. Green, and, of
course, W. E. Gladstone.
Using a mass of evidence, from novels, unpublished letters and
autobiographical writings as well as from contemporary speeches and
biographies, Ian Bradley has built up a picture of the complex and
often conflicting forces which made men espouse the Gladstonian
creed. He isolates the different strands in the Victorian Liberal
Movement, the thrust and competitiveness of up-and-coming merchants
and manufacturers, the love of liberty felt by rationalists and
romantics alike, and the stern imperatives of the Nonconformist
Conscience. He concludes that for all their differences and
inconsistencies, Victorian Liberals were bound together by an
all-pervasive sense of optimism and a fundamental faith in the
goodness of man and the reality of progress.
General
Imprint: |
Faber and Faber
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
July 2010 |
First published: |
July 2010 |
Authors: |
Ian Bradley
|
Dimensions: |
216 x 135 x 22mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
302 |
Edition: |
Main |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-571-27129-0 |
Categories: |
Books >
Humanities >
History >
General
Books >
History >
General
|
LSN: |
0-571-27129-4 |
Barcode: |
9780571271290 |
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