Gertrude Himmelfarb, the Outstanding Historian of Modern Morality

One of the 20th century’s leading historians of Victorian Britain, Gertrude Himmelfarb was also a penetrating critic of modern society and politics, who thought there was much to be learned from the virtues cultivated by the much-maligned Victorians—virtues that she argued were, in part, Jewish ones as well. Himmelfarb, later in her life, focused her attention on the attitudes of such great English authors as George Eliot and Matthew Arnold toward Jews and Judaism. In a forum sponsored by the Catholic University of Portugal, the political scientist João Carlos Espada and Himmelfarb’s son, the writer and editor William Kristol, discuss her legacy. (Video, one hour. Moderated by Rita Seabra Brito and Marc Plattner. Discussion of some of Himmelfarb’s Jewish interests can be found around the 45-minute mark.)