The Ends of History

Why were the Victorians so passionate about "History"?How did this passion relate to another Victorian obsession ¿ the "woman question"? In a brilliant and provocative study, Christina Crosby investigates the links between the Victorians¿ fascination with "history" and with the nature of "women."Discussing both key novels and non-literary texts ¿ Daniel Deronda and Hegel¿s Philosophy of History; Henry Esmond and Macaulay¿s History of England; Little Dorrit, Wilkie Collins¿ The Frozen Deep, and Mayhew¿s survey of "labour and the poor"; Villette, Patrick Fairburn¿s The Typology of Scripture and Ruskin¿s Modern Painters ¿ she argues that the construction of middle-class Victorian "man" as the universal subject of history entailed the identification of "women" as those who are before, beyond, above, or below history. Crosby¿s analysis raises a crucial question for today¿s feminists ¿ how can one read historically without replicating the problem of nineteenth century "history"?The book was first published in 1991.