The invention of progress : the Victorians and the past
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The invention of progress : the Victorians and the past
B. Blackwell, 1989
- : U.S.
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Note
Bibliography: p. [202]-219
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
A comprehensive survey of the Victorians exploration of the past which shows how the idea of progress was developed in two rival forms which expressed liberal and conservative social values. Whether in history, prehistory or the fossil record, the past could be visualized either as a continuous progression or as a sequence of distinct cycles or epiodes. The author argues that the controversies surrounding the "Darwinian Revolution" can be interpreted as the inevitable consequence of the Victorians' attempt to extend these models of history into the more distant past. Darwinian and non-Darwinian theories of evolution provided "scientific" foundations for rival views of human nature already expressed in the field of social history.
Table of Contents
- Introduction: Patterns of history. Part 1 The developments of society: Progress and civilization
- interlude - the fascination of the past
- rise and fall. Part 2 The evolution of mankind: The antiquity of man
- interlude - missing links
- the origin of the races. Part 3 The assent of life: fossils and progress
- interlude - reading the rocks
- progress by leaps. Epilogue - progress and degeneration.
by "Nielsen BookData"