The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of Victorian Britain. Литагент HarperCollins USD

      THE RISE OF RESPECTABLE SOCIETY

      A Social History of Victorian Britain

      1830–1900

      F.M.L. Thompson

       Copyright

      William Collins

      An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

      A Fontana Press Original 1988

      Copyright © F. M. L. Thompson 1988

      The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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      Source ISBN: 9780007291526

      Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN 9780007392780 Version: 2016-01-04

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       Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

Editor’s Preface

Author’s Preface

CHAPTER 1 Economy and Society

CHAPTER 2 The Family

CHAPTER 3 Marriage

       CHAPTER 4 Childhood

       CHAPTER 5 Homes and Houses

       CHAPTER 6 Work

       CHAPTER 7 Play

       CHAPTER 8 Authority and Society

       Further Reading

       Index

       About the Author

       About the Publisher

       Editor’s Preface

      It has sometimes been remarked that all forms of history are becoming social history, and, less frequently, it has been claimed that social history is total history, alone capable of comprehending and articulating all facets of past human experience. This series, which aims to present in three volumes a view of the social history of Britain from the early eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, is not particularly attached to either proposition; it has no designs on the autonomy of other branches of history, though conscious of its close relations with economic history, and no pretensions to be all-embracing. It has the more modest and pragmatic aim of tackling the great outpouring of research and publication in British social history which has taken place in the last twenty years, and of attempting to integrate the fruits of these detailed and original studies into works which will be more accessible to students coming fresh to the subject and readers who have no time or inclination to scan a hundred books and articles in order to get the feel of a century. The aim, however, is also more ambitious than this may sound: the purpose is not to provide a survey and summary of what other scholars have said, but to construct an interpretation of continuity and change in society, in its structure, its institutions, its customs and habits, and its class and gender relationships. The three volumes cover the ‘long’ eighteenth century, extending to 1830; the Victorian period; and the twentieth century. The editorial brief leaves each author to make sense of the material on his century in his own way: there is uniformity of structure in the thematic organization of each volume, but no uniformity of views, no party line. This is not a way of avoiding brickbats or shirking editorial responsibilities, it is just the way history works as a humane and liberal profession. If the result is a series which provokes discussion and stimulates further research and re-interpretation, that will be more than sufficient justification for the enterprise.

       January 1988

      F.M.L. THOMPSON

       Author’s Preface

      It is fitting that an Editor who announces that the time is ripe to take stock of the effects of the explosion of interest in the social history of Britain should be the first to respond to his own call, if only to demonstrate that it is possible to offer a synthesis whatever the hazards of being tripped up on this or that point by the specialists. The expansion of social history, moreover, has not been a simple matter of the unearthing of new facts, new information, and new material by researchers digging in previously unknown or untapped sources, although there has been plenty of that. It has been above all a redefinition and enlargement of the territory of social history using instruments and concepts adapted from social anthropology and sociology, as well as quantitative methods, alongside the older guides derived from political economy whether of liberal or Marxist varieties. Where matters of faith, doctrine, or ideology are involved the synthesizer is necessarily stepping through a minefield. Nevertheless, the very fact that social history is about ideas and ways of viewing the behaviour and relationships of groups, genders, communities, generations, and classes, and not simply about the ‘facts’ of life – although sex is an important and often central activity which earlier generations of historians preferred to sweep under the carpet