Culture and Society, 1780-1950 / Edition 2

by Raymond Williams

Overview

Acknowledged as perhaps the masterpiece of materialist criticism in the English language, this omnibus ranges over British literary history from George Eliot to George Orwell to inquire about the complex ways economic reality shapes the imagination.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231057011
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	08/01/1983
Series:	Morningside Book Series
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	363
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 8.22(h) x 0.97(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

One of the century's most distinguished public intellectuals, Raymond Williams (1921-1988) helped to create and form the conceptual space of contemporary literary & cultural studies.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part 1: A Nineteenth-Century Tradition
I. Contrasts i. Edmund Burke and William Cobbett ii. Robert Southey and Robert Owen
2. The Romantic Artist
3. Mill on Bentham and Coleridge
4. Thomas Carlyle
5. The Industrial Novels: Mary Barton and North and South, Mrs Gaskell; Hard Times, Dickens; Sybil, Disraeli; Alton Locke, Kingsley; Felix Holt, George Eliot
6. J. H. Newman and Matthew Arnold
7. Art and Society
Part II: Interregnum
i. W. H. Mallock ii. The ' New Aesthetics'
iii. George Gissing iv. Shaw and Fabianism v. Critics of the State vi. T. E. Hulme
Part III: Twentieth-Century Opinions
1. D. H. Lawrence
2. R. H. Tawney
3. T. S. Eliot
4. Two Literary Critics i. I. A. Richards ii. F. R. Leavis
5. Marxism and Culture
6. George Orwell

What People are Saying About This

Harold Rosenberg

CULTURE AND SOCIETY is worth a library of literary and political tracts in that it digs into the ideological layers that envelop modern politics. Written from an independent Left standpoint, this critical history of the concept of culture in England from 1780 to 1950 is exactly to the point of contemporary discussions of value.

Editorial Reviews

CULTURE AND SOCIETY is worth a library of literary and political tracts in that it digs into the ideological layers that envelop modern politics. Written from an independent Left standpoint, this critical history of the concept of culture in England from 1780 to 1950 is exactly to the point of contemporary discussions of value.

Harold Rosenberg

The earliest ideas on culture, Mr. Williams claims, developed in opposition to the laissez-faire society of the political economists. As the ideas on culture took shape, on the one hand, they became identified with a 'whole way of life.' On the other hand... culture became a court of appeals where real values could be determined. Culture, thus separated from the whole society, was associated with the idea of perfection through the study of the arts... Mr. Williams contrasts the ideas of ' culture as art' and 'culture as a whole way of life,' and commends the latter... the book should definitely be read by all those interested in English intellectual history.

M. S. Wilkins

The earliest ideas on culture, Mr. Williams claims, developed in opposition to the laissez-faire society of the political economists. As the ideas on culture took shape, on the one hand, they became identified with a 'whole way of life.' On the other hand... culture became a court of appeals where real values could be determined. Culture, thus separated from the whole society, was associated with the idea of perfection through the study of the arts... Mr. Williams contrasts the ideas of ' culture as art' and 'culture as a whole way of life,' and commends the latter... the book should definitely be read by all those interested in English intellectual history.

Political Science Quarterly - M.S. Wilkins

The earliest ideas on culture, Mr. Williams claims, developed in opposition to the laissez-faire society of the political economists. As the ideas on culture took shape, on the one hand, they became identified with a 'whole way of life.' On the other hand... culture became a court of appeals where real values could be determined. Culture, thus separated from the whole society, was associated with the idea of perfection through the study of the arts... Mr. Williams contrasts the ideas of ' culture as art' and 'culture as a whole way of life,' and commends the latter... the book should definitely be read by all those interested in English intellectual history.

— M. S. Wilkins

Political Science Quarterly