| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.2

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 193 words from this article are provided below; about 320 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Charles Eliot Norton: The Art of Reform in Nineteenth-Century America. By Linda Dowling. (Durham: University of New Hampshire Press, 2007. xxiv, 221 pp. $39.95, ISBN 978-1-58465-646-3.)

Linda Dowling's excellent biography of Charles Eliot Norton examines the public and private life of a prominent nineteenth-century American author, social critic, and professor of art. The author is determined above all to restore the reputation of a man whom most twentieth-century scholars portrayed as a deluded patrician aesthete and an ineffectual foe of democracy who was motivated primarily by status anxiety and a desire for social control. Dowling argues persuasively that Norton was, in fact, a "militant idealist," a progressive social reformer, and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries considered the most cultivated man in the United States. As she sees it, the problem is that, with the exception of James Turner in The Liberal Education of Charles Eliot Norton (1999), modern scholars have mistakenly drawn their conclusions regarding Norton from his writings and speeches from the last decade of his life, when his dogmatism and disillusionment were most pronounced as he witnessed the nation's pursuit of an imperialistic policy.

. . .

There are about 320 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.