Ginn argues that Victorian cultural philanthropy was a response to daunting urban challenges, and should be seen as part of mainstream social work of the time. Focusing on Whitechapel, Mile End and Bermondsey, this study makes an important contribution to Victorian social history and the place of cultural philanthropy within it.

In refreshing our understanding of this obscure but eloquent activism, Ginn approaches cultural philanthropy not simply as a project of class self-interest, nor as fanciful 'missionary aestheticism.' Rather, he shows how liberal aspirations towards adult education and civic community can be traced in a number of centres of moralising voluntary effort. Concentrating on Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel, the People's Palace in Mile End, Red Cross Hall in Southwark and the Bermondsey Settlement, the discussion identifies the common impulses animating practical reformers across these settings. Ginn shows how these were shaped by a distinctive diagnosis of urban deprivation and anomie.

CHOICE Review Modern historians have dismissed many prominent, late-Victorian, social reform movements as frivolous, pompous, or wrongheaded, according to Ginn (Univ. of Queensland, Australia), who argues that negative judgments on sharing fine art, music, poetry, literature, outings, and other aesthetic riches with the urban poor have been mired in a general misunderstanding of the benefactors' principles. The efforts of those such as Octavia Hill and the Kyrle Society; Samuel and Henrietta Barnett of St. Jude's Church, Whitechapel, later founders of Toynbee Hall; and Walter Besant and Sir Edmund Currie of the Beaumont Trust, which built the People's Palace at Mile End, were attempts to provide color and pleasure to the dingy, monotonous lives of the inner-city poor, establishing connections and friendships between the haves and the have-nots while recognizing that the poor were not automatically hungry nor were they heathens. Morality and Christian values were to be fostered by "diffusive Christianity" that provided positive intellectual and cultural stimulation through close association rather than pontification, with evening classes, reading rooms, and entertainments allowing variety and cooperation to ameliorate drab utilitarian environments while strengthening a sense of community among social classes. --E. J. Jenkins, Arkansas Tech University, USA Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.