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very significant part of Ruskin’s impact, which could be usefully explored even further. Eagles Is the person to do it. He writes: ‘Stark, suffocating, claustrophobic, cold, and expressed in sharp, alliterative, and menacing terms, this was the sort of apocalyptic vision of an industrial landscape perverting nature that resonated with working – class readers.’ (p. 206) That was Eagles, not Ruskin. Some may accuse Ruskin of sentimentality, but it was Ruskin’s reworking of the language of political economy and his resultant appeal to hearts as well as minds, which secured his affinity with the working man at the turn of the century. One such, by birth at least, was John Howard Whitehouse. The powerful effect of Ruskin’s teaching on Whitehouse hovered, Eagles writes in his penultimate chapter, on the brink of obsession. A self-made man from a working-class background, who became a Liberal MP, Whitehouse never lost his reverence for Ruskin’s ideals. He was at the centre of many institutions operating under Ruskin’s influence and was, as Eagles points out, ‘probably Ruskin’s truest disciple’ to an extent which went ‘far beyond Ruskin’s own definition of discipleship.’ (pp. 260-1) At a time when the Church was losing its control of the national psyche, Ruskin’s voice, devoid of doctrine and dogma, was a powerful alternative. As Eagles testifies in his conclusion, in the closing years of the nineteenth century Ruskin’s followers were moved to practical reform through the power of his humanitarian vision, rather than by any specific system. ‘It is, writes Eagles, ‘the distinction between the idealist and the pragmatist, between a fundamental radical thinker who strove for the ideals of tomorrow, and the practical social reformers fired into action by the need to make a difference today.’ (p. 268) Through a series of impressive case-studies, Eagles’ work makes the distinction clear. This extremely well-written and thoroughly researched book, gives Ruskin a deeper social context, and sheds further light on the nature and scope of his unquestionable influence. About the reviewer: Gill Cockram completed her doctoral thesis on Ruskin's social and political influence at Royal Holloway, University of London, in 2002 and is currently involved in further research in intellectual history. She has contributed to several journals and encyclopedias, is the author of Ruskin and Social Reform (London and New York, 2007) and she is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.