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Age of Equipoise (Modern Revivals in History)

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English mid-Victorian society is enlightening to study because it seemed to be in balance between the old and the new, the elements of growth and those of decay. Professor Burn examines the life and thought of the generation living between 1852 and 1867 in order to understand the unusual character of a people remarkably satisfied with themselves.

There was a particular strength and unity to this society that enabled it to "see complex problems in simple...often in dangerously simple...terms, to be reasonably confident that the qualities of manliness, independence and energy by which they set such store would produce a satisfactory synthesis." The influence was predominantly rural and professional, rather than urban and industrial. The propertied classes were the most powerful, and the church, the home, the estate, the court, and public offices were the dominating disciplines.

Professor Burns explains the social theory of the day and how it was harmonized with attempts to help those who did not benefit from its workings. He studies the legal and social disciplinary forces which gave the age its cohesiveness. And he examines the thought of the leaders of the period...the statesmen, the writers, the artists, the educators, the churchmen...in relation to what they said in the years before and after this time. The Age of Equipoise is a basic work both for students of the English history and for students who seek to understand the context of thought for the literary figures of mid-Victorian society.