America and the Patterns of Chivalry

John Fraser explores a major paradox about the USA: that after the Civil War, in a country now officially dedicated to rational, pacific, industrial progress and equality, there was a growing enthusiasm in the North for chivalric values. With a wealth of examples, modern and medieval, he shows how those values had not simply made for high-toned violence and romantic fictions, but, when transposed into college life, crusading reformism, and the radical labor movement, were powerful modifiers...