Unlike most other books written on the Beecher-Tilton scandal, Trials of Intimacy doesn't assume that Rev. Beecher is guilty of adultery. Fox attempts to get at the truth of the scandal, rather than the myth. He demonstrates the possibility of Beecher's innocence as well as guilt. He skillfully presents not just both sides of the story, but every side of the story. He concludes, rightfully, that we may never know what actually happened.

Trials of Intimacy would make an ideal college text for a study of Victorian social life and mores. This book is a must read for anyone researching the scandal. The bibliography contains an excellent synopsis of the material available.

The only complaint I have to make is that Fox practically brands Victoria Woodhull a liar. He also wrote that Victoria Woodhull was the only person jailed in connection to the scandal. He forgot Victoria Woodhull's soon-to-be ex-husband, Col. James Harvey Blood, and Victoria's sister, Tennie C. Claflin. Both were arrested, along with Victoria Woodhull, approximately eight times in connection with the scandal. I doubt that Victoria, Tennie C., and Colonel Blood (who was married to my great-great-grandmother Isabell Blood) would've gone to jail eight times for something they knew was a lie. If Beecher was innocent, Theodore Tilton put one over on Victoria, Tennie C., Col. Blood, and the American people.

There are more "secrets" to be uncovered about the scandal, which Fox didn't mention--like the rape and the insanity case. His book, though, will put you hot on the trail that Beecher and Tilton tried to cover up 125 years ago. You can decide for yourself who is the arch-fiend in this debacle: Henry Ward Beecher, Theodore Tilton, or the media who covered the story with a vengeance.

This book could be the basis for several studies all arising out of the facts of the then scandalous "affair" which is the subject matter of the book...it could be a sociological study, an historical study, a legal study, a psychological study, or even a study in communications...the author tries valiantly to do all of these things and for the most part succeeds...obviously, the lines of reasonable brevity have to be drawn somewhere....All in all this is a thoroughly fascinating account well described in its many facets. The only criticism I would have of this book is the authors use of a reverse chronology in organizing the material...being used to stories being told "from the beginning", the chosen sequence is a little disconcerting...given the many ramifications of the subject matter, however, I can certainly understand why the author chose to set out the events in the manner in which he did. An excellent study in the strange idiosyncracies of human and social nature!

Professor Fox does a fantastic job in this deeply introspective work of late nineteenth-century American culture, society, and religion. The Beecher-Tilton episode, now virtually forgotten, deserves retelling. With unusual deftness, Fox treats perpetually relevant questions regarding the nature of love and reworks them in this incredible story. Fox recounts the scandal in a refreshingly new perspective that captures the essence of American social, cultural, and religious life in the 1870s. A high-quality work in the historiography of American cultural history.

This book has a wealth of information on American idealogy. I used this book originally for a research project on Transcendentalism that focused on Thoreau, and found that the book was well-indexed and clearly focused. It contained a wealth of information, but wasn't wordy. I later bought the book just to read, and it has benefitted my studies immensely.

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) was--and probably still is--America's most famous theologian. From the 1920s to the 1960s, hw wrote numerous books on religious and political issues, as well as articles for LOOK, THE ATLANTIC, and THE NEW REPUBLIC among many other magazines. One of his lesser known works ("God grant me the strength to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I cannot and the wisdom to know the difference") still adorns the bric-a-brac sold in Christian bookstores. And, not far from his old office at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, a street is named after him. Richard Wightman Fox argues that beginning in the 1930s, Niebuhr became disenchanted with the "social gospel" theology that had come to dominate the so-called "mainline" Protestant churches. Niebuhr concluded that man is an inherently imperfect creature (and therefore all attempts to create a perfect society are futile), but that Christians still have to try to Christianize the social order. Such efforts are doomed to fail if their ultimate goal is the perfectability of man, but they can succeed if they have more limited goals. In other words, the world could be made better but it could not be re-made. In this way, Niebuhr reconciled in his own mind two opposing groups: the social gospel liberals and the conservative theologians who believed in sin. Niebuhr's belief in the reality of sin combined with his quest for social justice is generally called "neo-orthodoxy," though Fox uses this term only a few times. Fox does an excellent job of demonstrating how well Niebuhr's ideas fit with the assumptions of American liberals from the 1940s through the 1960s. Cold War liberals prided themselves on being both idealistic and realistic. To borrow one of Niebuhr's own phrases, American liberals were the optimistic "children of light" when it came to wiping out poverty and racial discrimination at home, but they were the pessimistic "children of darkness" when they dealt with Soviet Communism. No wonder Reinhold Niebuhr was the intelligentsia's favorite theologian. If Fox fails to capture anything about Niebuhr, it is just how un-spiritual (non-religious?)so much of Niebuhr's writings now seem. Niebuhr focused on four topics: God, Sin, Man, and the Social Order. But somehow Sin, Man, and the Social Order frequently crowd God out of the picture, and we're left wondering if we're dealing with a theologian or a social theorist or the Democratic Party's leading intellectual. To put it only slightly unfairly, Niebuhr was a brilliant and profound theologian, but he was the kind of theologian who maybe spent too much time wondering about who the next President ought to be.