Bruce Alvin King

Disappointing, to be honest, considering the high standards of the other two OELH volumes published about the twentieth century. King has less ground to cover than the others, and a narrower topic; he should be able to produce a coherent narrative. Instead, he gives the outlines of a narrative in his introduction and conclusion, and occasionally mentions the possibility that the authors he discusses are connected or relate to their historical circumstances. But I'd say 90% of the book is taken up with plot summaries and little else. Maybe this is necessary- I definitely learned about a number of authors I'd otherwise never have come across. But it's also disappointing, given that this should be a state of the discipline type work.
King's perspective is also a bit odd for a lit critic. He's very keen on liberalism as a function of the market, rather than seeing that the market is an off-shoot of liberalism. I guess this kind of inverse Marxism (Marx: market drives bad cultural effects; neo-liberals: market drives good cultural effects) is kind of popular outside the academy, but any understanding of history should make him think twice. Anyway, the concluding argument is: 'liberal' capitalism brings about happy multiculturalism in England, and that process is done. Isn't that nice. This was published in 2004; I do hope Mr King's had second thoughts about the argument in this book.… (meer)