Overview

A century ago, while feminism began to alter our perception of the roles of women, a very different movement transformed the American ideal of manhood. Its defining terms were most clearly set forth at Harvard University in the decades following the Civil War. During those years, more than ever before in our culture, men became conscious of themselves as men. Kim Townsend introduces us to the men at Harvard who were the most influential supporters and vocal critics of the new ideal of manhood. At the center was Harvard psychologist and philosopher William James, whose own personal perspective was very much a man's perspective, a masculine or manly one. His career and writing mirrored the ways Harvard responded to the pressures of the era. Manhood at Harvard has a rich and varied cast of characters - indeed, some of the most influential thinkers of the time. There is Charles William Eliot, the university president who transformed a somewhat provincial college that seemed almost an extension of a New England prep school into a world-class university that was taking its first steps towards America's ethnic diversity. W. E. B. Dubois pointed out the racial and gender assumptions implicit in Harvard's ideal, while George Santayana, another Harvard outsider, recognized James's masculine directness but turned away from his philosophy. Townsend's fascinating study penetrates a distinctive culture, the legacy of which has reverberated powerfully - and provocatively - in education, politics, and society throughout the twentieth century.

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of elite self-congratulation, paternalism and intellectual epicureanism, the ingredients for a serious and principled interest in lives far afield from Harvard Square.

A good introduction to the politics and personalities, the ideas and pieties of Harvard's faculty and some of its more famous students...Townsend sketches a wonderfully full picture of James struggling with the available ways of talking about manhood and reveling in the contradictions he saw more clearly than most. -- Tom Lutz New York Times Book Review A richly imagined, quirky entry in men's studies...Townsend has written a lovely, ironic appreciation of that liberal corner of the campus where James and his fellow travelers like Chapman somehow found, in the mix of elite self-congratulation, paternalism and intellectual epicureanism, the ingredients for a serious and principled interest in lives far afield from Harvard Square. -- Christine Stansell Boston Sunday Globe A brilliant and remarkably interdisciplinary cultural history about the 'rhetoric of masculinity' at Harvard University during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth...Useful for those of us in the academy striving to define how academic ideas can 'matter' within the larger social sphere, that is, how the reflective academic life can address issues of broad social and cultural import...A provocative and fascinating study, a fine model of cultural history. -- Charles Paine American Literature provocative and fascinating study, a fine model of cultural history. available ways of talking about manhood and reveling in the contradictions he saw more clearly than most. of elite self-congratulation, paternalism and intellectual epicureanism, the ingredients for a serious and principled interest in lives far afield from Harvard Square.

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