Taine's Notes On England
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Tear along jacket fold and back.
A sharp and witty foreigner's lens is trained on Victorian England in Hippolyte Taine's Notes on England, one of the most incisive and celebrated accounts of 19th-century British society ever written by a continental observer. Drawing from a series of visits made during the 1860s, the French philosopher and historian chronicles the customs, classes, institutions, and urban landscapes of a nation at the height of its imperial power — from the frenetic energy of London's streets to the quiet rituals of the English countryside, capturing a world simultaneously familiar and deeply foreign to his Gallic eye. Taine's prose, rendered here into vivid English by translator Edward Hyams, presents a masterclass in comparative cultural analysis, infused with the positivist rigour and psychological acuity that defined his broader intellectual project. His observations on Parliament, the press, religion, education, and national character remain strikingly relevant, offering not merely a historical document but a mirror held up to the enduring contradictions of English identity. Readers who think they know England — and those who know they do not — will find their assumptions quietly, brilliantly dismantled.
Author: Hippolyte Taine
Format: Hardback
Published: 1957, Thames and Hudson
Genre: European history
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Tear along jacket fold and back.
A sharp and witty foreigner's lens is trained on Victorian England in Hippolyte Taine's Notes on England, one of the most incisive and celebrated accounts of 19th-century British society ever written by a continental observer. Drawing from a series of visits made during the 1860s, the French philosopher and historian chronicles the customs, classes, institutions, and urban landscapes of a nation at the height of its imperial power — from the frenetic energy of London's streets to the quiet rituals of the English countryside, capturing a world simultaneously familiar and deeply foreign to his Gallic eye. Taine's prose, rendered here into vivid English by translator Edward Hyams, presents a masterclass in comparative cultural analysis, infused with the positivist rigour and psychological acuity that defined his broader intellectual project. His observations on Parliament, the press, religion, education, and national character remain strikingly relevant, offering not merely a historical document but a mirror held up to the enduring contradictions of English identity. Readers who think they know England — and those who know they do not — will find their assumptions quietly, brilliantly dismantled.