Radical Earnestness: English Social Theory 1880-1980
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: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What does it mean to think seriously about society — and can earnestness itself be a radical act? Radical Earnestness: English Social Theory 1880–1980 chronicles a century of moral and intellectual struggle in Britain, tracing the lives and arguments of thinkers who dared to believe that ideas could transform the social order. Fred Inglis presents a sweeping survey of English social theory across one of the most turbulent centuries in modern history, from the Victorian ethical revival through to the fractious cultural debates of the late twentieth century, illuminating how figures such as William Morris, R.H. Tawney, and Raymond Williams forged a distinctly English tradition of engaged, morally serious thought. Inglis writes with the conviction of a scholar who believes that intellectual history is inseparable from moral biography, and his prose carries both the rigour of academic argument and the warmth of genuine admiration for his subjects. The book argues that this tradition of radical earnestness — earnestness not as naivety, but as a fierce commitment to justice and human flourishing — represents England's most enduring contribution to social thought. As contemporary culture grows ever more cynical and fragmented, Radical Earnestness poses an urgent and quietly provocative question: what would it cost us to be serious again?
Author: Fred Inglis
Format: Paperback
Genre: Literary theory
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What does it mean to think seriously about society — and can earnestness itself be a radical act? Radical Earnestness: English Social Theory 1880–1980 chronicles a century of moral and intellectual struggle in Britain, tracing the lives and arguments of thinkers who dared to believe that ideas could transform the social order. Fred Inglis presents a sweeping survey of English social theory across one of the most turbulent centuries in modern history, from the Victorian ethical revival through to the fractious cultural debates of the late twentieth century, illuminating how figures such as William Morris, R.H. Tawney, and Raymond Williams forged a distinctly English tradition of engaged, morally serious thought. Inglis writes with the conviction of a scholar who believes that intellectual history is inseparable from moral biography, and his prose carries both the rigour of academic argument and the warmth of genuine admiration for his subjects. The book argues that this tradition of radical earnestness — earnestness not as naivety, but as a fierce commitment to justice and human flourishing — represents England's most enduring contribution to social thought. As contemporary culture grows ever more cynical and fragmented, Radical Earnestness poses an urgent and quietly provocative question: what would it cost us to be serious again?