The Strange Death of Moral BritainTransaction Publishers - 264 pages In the last half of the twentieth century, a once respectable and religious Britain became a seriously violent and dishonest society, one in which person and property were at risk, family breakdown was ubiquitous, and drug and alcohol abuse was rising. The Strange Death of Moral Britain demonstrates in detail the roots of Britain's decline. It also shows how a society, strongly Protestant in both morality and identity, became one of the most secular societies in the world.The culture wars about abortion, capital punishment, and homosexuality, which have convulsed the United States, have little meaning in Britain where there is neither a moral majority nor any indigenous emphasis on rights. In the period when Britain had a strong national and religious identity, defense of this identity led to legal persecution of male homosexuals. As Britain's identity crumbled, homosexuality ceased to be an important issue for most people. Similarly, all the pressing questions on abortion, capital punishment, and homosexuality were settled permanently on a purely utilitarian basis in Britain, where all sources of moral argument are weak. The ending of the death penalty marked the decline of the influence of the official hierarchies of church and state, the Church of England, the armed forces, and their representative, the Conservative Party. The Strange Death of Moral Britain is a study of moral change, secularization, loss of identity, and the growth of deviant behavior in Britain in the twentieth century. Based on detailed scholarship, it is tightly argued and clearly written with a minimum of jargon.It will be of interest to scholars in religious studies and British social history, and to a general reading public concerned with timely moral controversies.Christie Davies was for eighteen years a professor at the University of Reading, England, and has been a visiting lecturer in the United States and India. He is the author of several books including The Mirth of Nations, available from Transaction, and his articles have appeared in leading academic journals in sociology, criminology, social history and religious studies, among others. |
Table des matières
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03Chapter2pdf | 63 |
04Chapter3pdf | 107 |
05Chapter4pdf | 139 |
06Chapter5pdf | 181 |
07Chapter6pdf | 207 |
08Referencespdf | 241 |
09Indexpdf | 257 |
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addicts alcohol armed forces Bill Bishop boundaries British capital punishment causalism causalist changes Christian Church of England committed Conservative countries Court of Human crime Criminal Statistics Davies death of moral death of respectable death penalty decline decriminalization desertion deterrence deviant divorce drug England and Wales Europe European Court execution favor Geoffrey Fisher Hansard harm hierarchies Homicide homosexual homosexual acts homosexual behavior House of Commons House of Lords Human Rights identity illegitimacy individual institutions Irish judges Labour Liberal male homosexual ment military moral Britain moral Ireland moralist Britain murder nineteenth century Northern Ireland offenses Parliament particular party percent police political prison Protestant reform religion religious Report Republic of Ireland respectable Britain rise Roman Catholic Section 28 secular sentences sexual social society sodomy strange death suicide Sunday Schools tion tradition turning point twentieth century twenty-first century U-curve Ulster United Kingdom violence vote women World