Denys Leighton

This study of T. H. Green views his philosophical opus through his public life and political commitments, and uses biography as a lens to examine Victorian political culture and its moral climate. The book deals with the political and religious history of Victorian Britain in examining the basis of Green's Liberal partisanship. The author demonstrates how Green's main ethical and political conceptions - his idea of "self-realisation" and his theory of individuality within community - were informed by evangelical theology, popular Protestantism and an idea of the English national consciousness as formed by religious conflict. While the significance of Kantian and Hegelian elements in Green's thought is acknowledged, it is argued that "indigenous" qualities of Green's teachings resonated with values shared by elite and rank-and-file Liberals during the mid and late Victorian era. In examining Green's beliefs about the historical evolution of English liberty, his championing of (Liberal) Nonconformity and Nonconformist causes and his approval of religious bases of community, this study analyzes the development of a Greenian moment and traces Green's influence on Liberal, quasi-socialist and Conservative social reform down to the 1920s. The lasting impact of Green's teachings on British and Western political philosophy point to limitations of the "secularization thesis" still tacitly accepted by historians of Western political thought.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: T. H. Green, Philosophy and Liberalism
• Some Observations on Historical Method
• Career, Influence, Reputation
• Green's View of Self and Society
• Rational Religion, Sittlichkeit and the Christed Self
• Religious Principles and Social Change
• The Social Gospel and Radicalism, 1870-1900
• Green and Political Memory
• Epilogue. Green, Social Philosophy and the Question of Belief
• Selected Bibliography
• I. Manuscripts and Unpublished Primary Sources
• II. Green's Published Writings and Letters; Reported Speeches
• III. Parliamentary Papers and Public Documents
• IV. Sources Originally Printed Before 1914
• V. Other Printed Sources Since 1914
• VI. Theses and Dissertations
• VII. Unpublished Conference Papers
• Index

· ISBN 0-907845-540-1 · Published June 2004 by Imprint Academic · Cloth · 300 pages · $49.90 ·

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