the pleasures of the imagination john brewer

The Pleasures of the Imagination confirms this view of the main of the public mind. In Britons, Linda Colley highlighted the new political, patriotic and religious tides which flowed in the Georgian age, creating a fresh confidence and sense of national identity. This is a book to treasure as it treasures a past we thought we had lost.' - Pat Rogers, Sunday Telegraph We are shown round a society aiming at Rome but often hitting Babylon, with the combined attitutes of fin-de siecle Paris and of Las Vegas. This is by far the most complete and up-to-date account of the evolving Georgian arts. Brewer is perceptive, amusing and thorough wherever he strays. 'Brewer ranges over almost every corner of the English mind with sharp, darting observation. I hope some of our new political masters have time to read it, for it is a history that teaches us many lessons.' - Peter Hall, The Observer This book wears its massive scholarship lightly. The marvel of this book is that in writing in exuberant detail about the past, Brewer succeeds in illuminating the present. It describes the contortions of the eighteenth century as it developed a culture. ' The Pleasures of the Imagination is a splendid cornucopia of a book. Like all really original achievements it makes us sharply rethink things we supposed we knew well, but it does so with humour and humanity, and through the text runs Brewer's remarkable intellect: forceful, lucid and penetrating.' - Simon Schama 'If you want to understand how British culture reinvented itself in the eighteenth century, read The Pleasures of the Imagination. ' Pleasures of the Imagination paints a kaleidoscopic picture of eighteenth-century culture that is both erudite and accessible.' - Heather Mcpherson, University of Alabama at Birmingham give this book as a present to your favourite amateur historian: they will love you for it.' - Kate Macdonald, Vulpes Libris 'his history book is now, for me, the last word on how British literary culture changed between the last days of the early modern period and the Victorian age.

The pleasures of the imagination john brewer