SOURCE: Beum, Robert. “Gertrude Himmelfarb on the Victorians and Ourselves.” Sewanee Review 105, no. 2 (spring 1997): 260-66.

In the following review, Beum discusses a recent reissue of Victorian Minds (originally published in 1968), as well as The De-Moralization of Society. Beum praises Himmelfarb's historical analysis, but faults her for failing to suggest adequate solutions to current social problems.

Gertrude Himmelfarb probably knows more about Victorian England than anyone alive. She knows the era's many defamers no less intimately and has faced them all along as a scholarly magician pulling dumb-founding facts and logical chains out of their hats. The Victoriaphobes, at first a smart set taking their cue from Lytton Strachey, are now the not-so-smart set of the counter culture that has become the dominant culture. To them, in her most recent studies, Himmelfarb has turned devastating attention.

The recently reissued Victorian Minds (1968) collects thirteen essays published in the years when...