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''One has often wondered whether upon the whole earth there is anything so unintelligent, so unapt to perceive how the world is really going, as an ordinary young Englishman of our upper class.''

Poet, education reformer, social theorist and passionate critic of Victorian England, Matthew Arnold condemned an industrial society in ''bondage to machinery'' and argued instead that the wonder and joy of culture - in particular the ''sweetness and light'' of classical civilization - were essential to human life. The other pieces here, on literary criticism, schools, France, journalism and democracy, form a powerful call to arms from a writer who believed that the English needed to be taught not what to think, but how to think.

Edited with an introduction by P. J. Keating.

Culture and Anarchy and Other Selected Prose

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    A Paperback / softback by Matthew Arnold, P. Keating

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      Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
      Publication Date: 05/02/2015
      ISBN13: 9780141396248, 978-0141396248
      ISBN10: 0141396245
      Also in:
      Biography Essays Politics, Philosophy & Society Cultural studies Political science and theory

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      ''One has often wondered whether upon the whole earth there is anything so unintelligent, so unapt to perceive how the world is really going, as an ordinary young Englishman of our upper class.''

      Poet, education reformer, social theorist and passionate critic of Victorian England, Matthew Arnold condemned an industrial society in ''bondage to machinery'' and argued instead that the wonder and joy of culture - in particular the ''sweetness and light'' of classical civilization - were essential to human life. The other pieces here, on literary criticism, schools, France, journalism and democracy, form a powerful call to arms from a writer who believed that the English needed to be taught not what to think, but how to think.

      Edited with an introduction by P. J. Keating.

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