With an interdisciplinary approach that encompasses political history, the history of ideas, cultural history and art history, The Victorian World offers a sweeping survey of the world in the nineteenth century.
This volume offers a fresh evaluation of Britain and its global presence in the years from the 1830s to the 1900s. It brings together scholars from history, literary studies, art history, historical geography, historical sociology, criminology, economics and the history of law, to explore more than 40 themes central to an understanding of the nature of Victorian society and culture, both in Britain and in the rest of the world. Organised around six core themes – the world order, economy and society, politics, knowledge and belief, and culture – The Victorian World offers thematic essays that consider the interplay of domestic and global dynamics in the formation of Victorian orthodoxies. A further section on ‘Varieties of Victorianism’ offers considerations of the production and reproduction of external versions of Victorian culture, in India, Africa, the United States, the settler colonies and Latin America. These thematic essays are supplemented by a substantial introductory essay, which offers a challenging alternative to traditional interpretations of the chronology and periodisation of the Victorian years.
Lavishly illustrated, vivid and accessible, this volume is invaluable reading for all students and scholars of the nineteenth century.
List of illustrations. Notes on Contributors. Acknowledgements. Preface. 1. Introduction: Victorian Milestones, Martin Hewitt. PART I: THE WORLD ORDER. 2. The Great Arch of Empire Dane Kennedy. 3. The shrinking of the globe, Peter J. Hugill. 4. Patterns of industrialization, Emma Griffin. 5. Free Trade and its Enemies, Tony Howe, 6. The globalisation of culture, Patrick Brantlinger. 7. Human Traffic, Eric Richards. 8. Varieties of nationalism, Krishan Kumar. 9. Geopolitics and the Victorian Geopolitical Unconscious, Lauren M.E. Goodlad. PART 2: ECONOMY AND SOCIETY. 10. Entrepreneurialism or Gentlemanly Capitalism, Donna Loftus. 11. Money’s Worth: Morality, Class, Politic, Timothy Alborn. 12. Cultures of Commodities, Cultures of Things, Elaine Freedgood. 13. Urbanising experiences, Richard Dennis. 14. The culture of ‘environmentality’ and the exceptionality of the countryside, William Taylor 15. Was there a Victorian demographic transition? Alison Mackinnon. 16. 'Many little harmless and interesting adventures...: Gender and the Victorian City, Lynda Nead. 17. Disease and the Body, Pamela K. Gilbert. PART 3: POLITICS. 18. The Victorian State in its Imperial Contexts, Zoe Laidlaw.19. Voluntarism and self-help, Alex Tyrrell. 20. The performance of citizenship, Rohan McWilliam. 21. Race and Citizenship: Colonial Inclusions and Exclusions, Alan Lester. 22. ‘Private Law’ and the Laissez-Faire State, Michael Lobban. 23. Discipline, Barry Godfrey. PART 4: KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF. 24. Worlds of Victorian Religion, Jeffrey Cox. 25. The creed of science and its enemies, Bernard Lightman. 26. The Power of the Past: History and Modernity in the Victorian World, Billie Melman. 27. Education, Class and Culture, Robert Anderson. 28. The Photographic lens: graphs and the changing practices of Victorian economists, Harro Maas. 29. The antinomies of sage culture, William Whyte. PART 5: CULTURE. 30. Periodicalism, Graham Law. 31. The Global Common Reader, Jonathan Rose. 32. Victorian Theatricality, Kate Newey. 33. The Empire of Art, Alison Inglis. 34. Aural anxieties and the advent of modernity, John Picker. 35. Leisure: Merrie to Modern, Peter Bailey. PART 6: VARIETIES OF VICTORIAN. 36. India in the Victorian age – Victorian India? Margrit Pernau. 37. Victorianism at the frontier: the white settler colonies, Margot Finn. 38. Afro-Victorian Worlds, Simon Gikandi. 39. Learning the rules of the game: informal empire and the Mexican experience at Stonyhurst College, 1805-1920, Victor Macías-González. 40. The Victorian period of American History, Daniel Howe.
Biography
Martin Hewitt is Professor of History and Dean of the School of Music, Humanities and Media at the University of Huddersfield, UK. He was the founding editor of the Journal of Victorian Culture, and Secretary of the British Association for Victorian Studies from 2000 to 2010. He has written extensively on the culture of the nineteenth century city and on Victorian Studies as a field. His publications include An Age of Equipoise? Reassessing mid-Victorian Britain (2000), The Diaries of Samuel Bamford, 1858-61 (2000) and The Emergence of Stability in the Industrial City: Manchester 1832-67 (1996).
The Victorian World covers an impressive array of topics that range from citizenship to theatricality and from music to imperialism. Simultaneously interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, it features thought-provoking juxtapositions and gives us a Victorian age that is truly global. This book will become the go-to resource for students and experts alike. - Susie Steinbach, Hamline University, USA
