19th century
A01=Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
A01=Vicky Albritton
alternative lifestyles
anthropocene
archaeology
Author_Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
Author_Vicky Albritton
Category=NHD
Category=NHTB
Category=RNK
commune
community
consumerism
cottage industries
england
environment
epistemology
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
ethical consumption
ethics
gardening
hand spinning
industrial revolution
knowledge
lake district
landscape
paternalism
pedagogy
racism
ruskin
simplicity
sufficiency
sustainable living
technophobia
utopia
victorian
virtue
wealth
woodworking
Product details
- ISBN 9780226339986
- Weight: 425g
- Dimensions: 15 x 24mm
- Publication Date: 07 Mar 2016
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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From Henry David Thoreau to Bill McKibben, critics and philosophers have long sought to demonstrate how a sufficient life—one without constant, environmentally damaging growth—might still be rich and satisfying. Yet one crucial episode in the history of sufficiency has been largely forgotten. Green Victorians tells the story of a circle of men and women in the English Lake District who attempted to create a new kind of economy, turning their backs on Victorian consumer society in order to live a life dependent not on material abundance and social prestige but on artful simplicity and the bonds of community.
At the center of their social experiment was the charismatic art critic and political economist John Ruskin. Albritton and Albritton Jonsson show how Ruskin’s followers turned his theory into practice in a series of ambitious local projects ranging from hand spinning and woodworking to gardening, archaeology, and pedagogy. This is a lively yet unsettling story, for there was a dark side to Ruskin’s community as well—racist thinking, paternalism, and technophobia. Richly illustrated, Green Victorians breaks new ground, connecting the ideas and practices of Ruskin’s utopian community with the problems of ethical consumption then and now.
At the center of their social experiment was the charismatic art critic and political economist John Ruskin. Albritton and Albritton Jonsson show how Ruskin’s followers turned his theory into practice in a series of ambitious local projects ranging from hand spinning and woodworking to gardening, archaeology, and pedagogy. This is a lively yet unsettling story, for there was a dark side to Ruskin’s community as well—racist thinking, paternalism, and technophobia. Richly illustrated, Green Victorians breaks new ground, connecting the ideas and practices of Ruskin’s utopian community with the problems of ethical consumption then and now.
