SOURCE: Brown, John. Review of The De-Moralization of Society, by Gertrude Himmelfarb. History 82, no. 267 (July 1997): 526-27.

In the following review, Brown is highly critical of Himmelfarb's The De-Moralization of Society, asserting that her historical analysis is marred by political rhetoric.

Though its author is a well-known historian, it might be kinder to review this book [The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values] as a tract for the times. However, history is what it purports to be, and as such it can only be judged harshly. While it contains occasional passages of sophisticated historical analysis, as a whole it is bizarrely simple-minded, highly selective and partisan, and dispiritingly illustrates the pitfalls of trying to write history in the service of particular political positions and views. Mrs Thatcher is the heroine and patron saint of the project, praised in the opening paragraph for raising the need for...