True Love & Perfect Union

by William R. Leach

Persuasively argues that the early feminists helped create a reform movement which has defined twentieth-century progressivism, as they brought social reforms to medicine, religion, education, and marriage

Genres: Feminism

449 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

William R. Leach is a professor of history at Columbia University. His books include Butterfly People, Country of Exiles: The Destruction of Place in American Life, and Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture, which was a National Book Award finalist.

Reviews

[Edward Champion · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've become enchanted with William R. Leach's mind by way of LAND OF DESIRE, but I do feel that he works best in a free-form expansive mode, even when he's running off-kilter (see COUNTRY OF EXILES). Leach obviously has a lot here to say about sex and marriage in the Victorian age, but his emphasis here is on the ideas of prominent thinkers rather than how these ideas were disseminated in Victorian and post-Victorian society and even fleshed out by others. Some good resources in the endnotes, but I think the topic here was too narrow for Leach's interesting mind.