| However, as a reference text on
this period, it is not primarily for its coverage of
religiosity per se that this text is likely to be
of benefit to scholars; rather, it is the coverage of
areas that provide the cultural and social background that
will often prove the most fascinating. Here, we are
provided with a range of comprehensive and illuminating
surveys of many aspects of Victorian life. Without wishing
to pick out any chapters as exemplary, as there are so
many good examples, some I found particularly fascinating
were those on 'Disease and the Body', 'Discipline',
'Learning: Education, Class and Culture' and 'The Empire
of Art'. All were areas in which I found my partial
knowledge extended and informed, and in ways which helped
me to see how things fitted into a surrounding context. It is hard to draw any general conclusion from such a wide ranging set of individual essays; however, overall the quality of the writing and content is of a high standard, and it is quite exceptional to get a text where one sees this consistently. As such, the editor is to be congratulated on his choice of contributors. It is a text which should sit in every library, and will surely be an indispensable companion as a reference work, and source of further reading and inspiration for all students and scholars of religion in the Victorian period. Paul Hedges, Review in Journal for the Academic Study of Religion 26:1 (2013) |
|
A particular
strength of the collection is the number of essays
that formulate new understandings of the relationships
between nationalism and internationalism: this is the
pivot on which its reclamation and re-imagining of
Victorianism turns. ... If, as Pernau argues in
relation to India, 'to be reassured about its future
destiny, the nation needed a history' [649], this book
not only offers a thorough and engaging overview for
students and scholars, but also contributes to the
shaping of future thinking about British identity
through its refocusing of the past and its reclamation
of historical terms that have come to be regarded as
limiting. Ingrid Hanson, Review in Cercles (2013) |
| Tanya Agathocleous, Composite Review in Victorian
Literature and Culture 43:3 (2015): 'Imperial, Anglophone, Geopolitical, Worldly: Evaluating the "Global in Victorian Studies' |