Full Description
Cut off in traffic? Bumped without apology on the subway? Forced to listen to a profane conversation in a public space? In today's Western societies, many feel that there has been a noticeable and marked decrease in mutual consideration in both public and private settings. Are we less civil now than in the past? Benet Davetian's masterful study Civility: A Cultural History responds to this question through a historical, social, and psychological discussion of the civility practices in three nations - England, France, and the United States.
Davetian's rich, multi-dimensional review of civility from 1200 to the present day provides an in-depth analysis of the social and personal psychology of human interaction and charts a new course for the study and understanding of civility and civil society. Civility addresses major topics in public discourse today regarding the ideals and practices of civility and the possibility of a future civility ethic capable of inspiring cooperation across cultural and national boundaries.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: The Genealogy of Western Courtesy and Civility
From Barbarism to Courtly Manners
Secular Civility in the Renaissance
Shifts in Identity and Awareness: Protestantism and the Enlightenment
French Court Society, the French Revolution, and the Paradoxes of French Civility
England and the Victorian Ethic
The American Experience: Democracy and Informal Civility
Part II: The Rise of the Late-Modern American Self
Conformity, Opposition, and Identity
Part III: The Multifaceted Anatomy of Civility
Towards a Cultural Sociology of Civility
Part IV: Contemporary French, American, and English Civility and Interaction
A Comparative Field Study of France, America, and England
Part V: Summing Up
Civilizing and Recivilizing Processes
Bibliography
Index
