Governing Morals

This broad-ranging history of moral regulation in Britain and the United States from the late seventeenth century onward, covers specific movements such as the Society for the Reformation of Manners, the Vice Society, sexual abuse and anti-pornography movements, and self-help movements. Hunt argues that the main impetus for moral regulations often stems from the middle classes, rather than those with institutional power, but most significantly they provide classic instances of the intimate link between the "governance of others" and the "governance of the self."