Understanding the Victorians: Politics, Culture and Society in Nineteenth-Century Britain / Edition 2

by Susie L. Steinbach

Overview

Understanding the Victorians paints a vivid portrait of an era of dramatic change, combining broad survey with close analysis and introducing students to the critical debates on the nineteenth century taking place among historians today.

The volume encompasses all of Great Britain and Ireland over the whole of the Victorian period and gives prominence to social and cultural topics alongside politics and economics and emphasizes class, gender, and racial and imperial positioning as constitutive of human relations. This third edition is fully updated with new chapters on emotion and on Britain’s relationship with Europe as well as added discussions of architecture, technology, and the visual arts. Attention to the current concerns and priorities of professional historians also enables readers to engage with today’s historical debates. Starting with the Queen Caroline Affair in 1820 and coming up to the start of World War I in 1914, thematic chapters explore the topics of space, politics, Europe, the empire, the economy, consumption, class, leisure, gender, the monarchy, the law, arts and entertainment, sexuality, religion, and science.

With a clear introduction outlining the key themes of the period, a detailed timeline, and suggestions for further reading and relevant internet resources, this is the ideal companion for all students of the nineteenth century.

Discover more from Susie by exploring our forthcoming Routledge Historical resource on British Society, edited by Susie L. Steinbach and Martin Hewitt.

Find out more about our Routledge Historical resources by visiting https://www.routledgehistoricalresources.com.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138906105
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/26/2016
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	362
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Susie L. Steinbach is a Professor of History at Hamline University who has written extensively on nineteenth-century Britain, with particular emphasis on gender and the law. She is the author of Understanding the Victorians, 2nd edition (Routledge, 2016), Women in England 1760–1914: A Social History (2004), and the editor of Millicent Garret Fawcett by Her Contemporaries (2008).

Table of Contents

List of figures Timeline Preface to the third edition Acknowledgments Introduction: ‘Playing on the Piano-forte’ 1. A ‘green and pleasant land’ of cities and slums: Space 2. ‘Discussions on the subject of reform’: Politics 3. 'Fog in channel—Continent isolated’: Britain and Europe 4. Ruling the world: Imperialism 5. Wealth, poverty, growth, and slumps: The economy 6. ‘Bristling with shops’: Consumption 7. ‘Born into the lower-upper-middle’: Class 8. ‘Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside’: Leisure 9. ‘A common cause with all the females in this kingdom’: Gender 10. A ‘dignified part’: Monarchy 11. ‘The court was crowded all day’: The law and the police 12. ‘Good, murderous melodramas’: Arts, entertainment, and print culture 13. Marriage, free love, and ‘unnatural crimes’: Sexuality 14. 'For all its gathered tears': Emotion 15. ‘Begin and end with the Church whatever you do between-whiles’: Religion 16. Vestiges and origins: Science, technology, and medicine

Editorial Reviews

"The engaging style and comprehensive coverage of Susie Steinbach’s Understanding the Victorians makes it perfect for an advanced undergraduate class, while the wealth of information it provides on a range of topics – including space, consumption, sexuality, and religion – will enlighten even the Victorian specialist. My students love this book as much as I do."

Carol Herringer, Wright State University, USA

"This lively, engaging book is a superb introduction to the world of the Victorians. Employing a thematic approach that ranges from class and consumption to science and sexuality, Susie Steinbach succeeds in capturing the remarkable richness and complexity of nineteenth-century British culture and society."

Dane Kennedy, George Washington University, USA

"This refreshing and lively book offers a readable introduction to the Victorian period – presenting a fresh perspective on established themes in Victorian cultural history such as class, gender, religion and imperialism as well as bringing new agendas, including space and consumerism, to the fore. From the streets inhabited by the urban poor to the palaces of the aristocracy and the political elite, Steinbach deftly evokes the Victorian social and cultural world, bringing us closer to understanding the far-reaching social changes that swept over the British nation in this period."

Jane Hamlett, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

Steinbach’s book is remarkable for its complex and nuanced understanding of culture and for the clarity in which this is expressed. Care is taken to pull out examples which represent the age, but analysis is subtle and aimed at gaining a precise understanding of their significance to Victorian society... [It] integrates old topics and new frameworks in a way that offers an overview of the discipline and which, through careful synthesis of diverse approaches, offers new perspectives on the Victorians and their place in British history."

Annual Bulletin of Historical Literature

From the Publisher