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Drawing room of life

by
June-July 2006, no. 282

Fabianism and Culture: A study in British socialism and the arts 1884–1918 by Ian Britain

CUP, $89.95 pb, 344 pp

Drawing room of life

by
June-July 2006, no. 282

Philistinism and anti-intellectualism enjoy each other’s company so much that it can be bracing to be reminded that it is possible to be both an intellectual and a philistine. That, at least, was a charge levelled at the British Fabians by some former members of the Fabian Society – and by some historians too quick to take those apostates at their word. The Fabians had unimpeachable intellectual credentials, but their preoccupation with policy, the mechanics of municipal and national government, and strategies for getting their policies implemented (initially by ‘permeating’ existing political parties, and later, in the case of Beatrice and Sidney Webb, through the Labour party) was such that they could appear ascetic and unmoved by the pleasures – and the potential – of literature and the arts.

Fabianism and Culture: A study in British socialism and the arts 1884–1918

Fabianism and Culture: A study in British socialism and the arts 1884–1918

by Ian Britain

CUP, $89.95 pb, 344 pp

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