Author: John Canning
Editor(s): John Canning
Publisher: Rupa
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 601
ISBN/UPC (if available): N/A
Description
In this volume are gathered one hundred of the most outstanding lives of the nineteenth century throughout the world.
The men and women of action are here as well as the thinkers, scientists, inventors and captains of industry as well as reformers, composers and artists. They represent, taken together, a kaleidoscope of views and ideas, a ferment often as violent and contradictory as that which we experience today.
The twentieth century is the child of the nineteenth, and the reader, in fact, may well find that many of the horrors of our time have originated in the whirl and clash of nineteenth-century ideas.
The soaring spiritual idealism of Hegel is turned by Marx into a materialist philosophy; and both contrast with John Stuart Mill and Samuel Smiles with their ethic or laissez-faire capitalism. Arnold and Jowett used education to produce an establishment elite, while Disraeli extended the franchise in a way which would eventually undermine it. Against Darwin's voice was balanced that of Newman.
There were confusions and contradictions too within individual lives. Andrew Jackson scorned the mob and yet can claim with justice to be the first truly popular President; whilst Lee, who opposed both secession and slavery, fought nobly for the South.
All this is in sharp contrast to the direct line of the century's staggering, scientific and industrial progress.
This book is required reading for all who wish to understand their own times by reference to the prime movers and thinkers of the recent past.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Statesman and Soldiers
Scientists, Inventors and Engineers
Writers and Poets
Religious Leaders and Thinkers
Reformers and Innovators
Discoverers and Explorers
Legends and Causes Celebres
Captains of Industry and Commerce
Composers, Artists and Artistes