Bøger af Gertrude Himmelfarb

In an elegant, eminently readable work, one of our most distinguished intellectual historians gives us a brilliant revisionist history. The Roads to Modernity reclaims the Enlightenment-an extraordinary time bursting with new ideas about human nature, politics, society, and religion--from historians who have downgraded its importance and from scholars who have given preeminence to the Enlightenment in France over concurrent movements in England and America. Contrasting the Enlightenments in the three nations, Himmelfarb demonstrates the primacy and wisdom of the British, exemplified in such thinkers as Adam Smith, David Hume, and Edmund Burke, as well as the unique and enduring contributions of the American Founders. It is their Enlightenments, she argues, that created a social ethic-humane, compassionate, and realistic-that still resonates strongly today, in America perhaps even more than in Europe. The Roads to Modernity is a remarkable and illuminating contribution to the history of ideas.

As the debate over values grows ever more divisive, one of the most eminent historians of the Victorian era reminds readers that values are no substitute for virtues--and that the Victorian considered hard work, thrift, respectability, and charity virtues essential to a worthwhile life. "An elegant, literate defense of ninteenth-century English mores and morals."--New York.

From one of today''s most respected historians and cultural critics comes a new book examining the gulf in American society--a division that cuts across class, racial, ethnic, political and sexual lines. One side originated in the tradition of republican virtue, the other in the counterculture of the late 1960s. Himmelfarb argues that, while the latter generated the dominant culture of today-particularly in universities, journalism, television, and film--a "dissident culture" continues to promote the values of family, a civil society, sexual morality, privacy, and patriotism. Proposing democratic remedies for our moral and cultural diseases, Himmelfarb concludes that it is a tribute to Americans that we remain "one nation" even as we are divided into "two cultures."

Examines why a woman who was firmly labeled an unbeliever would take up the cause of Judaism and its promise of nationhood and statehood.

In these provocative essays, one of our most distinguished historians looks into the abyss of the present. Himmelfarb exposes the intellectual and spiritual impoverishment of some of our most fashionable current ideas--and shows how the vogue for historical structuralism has made it possible to trivialize the tragedy of the Holocaust.

In a provocative study that bristles with contemporary relevance, Himmelfarb demonstrates that the material and moral dimensions of poverty were inseparable in the minds of late Victorians, be they radical or conservative.

A biographical, historical, and philosophical study of the impact of Darwinism on the intellectual climate of the nineteenth century, challenging the conventional view of Darwin's greatness. "A thorough and masterly book."-Times Literary Supplement.

In these brilliant essays, Ms. Himmelfarb explores the many facets, public and private, of the Victorian idea of morality. She invites us to reconsider the complex and colorful panorama of ideas and attitudes, beliefs and behavior, that goes under the name of Victorianism-and it reconsiders as well our own relation to that much abused and misunderstood culture. "An important book."-New York Times Book Review.

For this updated edition of her acclaimed work on historians and historiography, Himmelfarb adds four new essays. In examining the effects of postmodernism, the illusions of cosmopolitanism, A. J. P. Taylor and revisionism, and Fukuyama's "end of history," Himmelfarb enriches her exploration of the ways historians make sense of the past.

In The Moral Imagination, Gertrude Himmelfarb, one of America''s most distinguished intellectual historians, explores the minds and lives of some of the most brilliant and provocative thinkers of modern times. In their distinctive ways, she argues, they exemplify what Burke two centuries ago and Trilling most recently have called the ΓÇ£moral imagination.ΓÇ¥ Himmelfarb describes how each of these thinkers, coming from different traditions, responding to different concerns, and writing in different genres, shared a moral passion that permeated their work. It is this passion that makes their reflectionsΓÇöon politics and literature, religion and society, marriage and sexΓÇösometimes unpredictable, often controversial, always exciting, and as illuminating and pertinent today as they were then. The second edition includes a revised introduction and three new essays on Adam Smith, Lord Acton, and Alfred Marshall.

The history of Judaism has for too long been dominated by the theme of anti-Semitism, reducing Judaism to the recurrent saga of persecution and the struggle for survival. This book reaffirms Jews in their own faith and aspirations.

Milton Himmelfarb, perhaps best known for his quip that Jews earned like Episcopalians but voted like Puerto Ricans, was one of the most unfairly neglected essayists of his time. This book covers the essential core of his social, political, and theological essays.