Victorious Century

The United Kingdom, 1800-1906

David Cannadine

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A superbly told history of Victoria's Britain in all its grandeur and misery, triumph and doubt

To live in Victorian Britain was to experience an astonishing series of changes, of a kind for which there was simply no precedent in the human experience. There were revolutions in transport, communication, work; cities grew vast; scientific ideas made the intellectual landscape unrecognizable. This was an exhilarating time, but also a horrifying one.

David Cannadine has created a bold, fascinating new interpretation of Victorian Britain. This was a country which saw itself at the summit of the world. And yet it was a society also convulsed by doubt, fear and introspection. Repeatedly, politicians and writers felt themselves to be staring into the abyss and what is seen as an era of irritating self-belief was in practice obsessed by a sense of its own fragility, whether as a great power or as a moral force. Victorious Century catches the relish and humour of the age, but also the dilemmas of a kind with which we remain familiar today.

Published: 17 September 2018
ISBN: 9780141019130
Imprint: Penguin Press
Format: Paperback
Pages: 624
RRP: $28.00

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About the author

David Cannadine

Sir David Cannadine is Chair of the National Portrait Gallery in London, Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University and General Editor of the Penguin History of Europe and Penguin History of Britain. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Chair of the Blue Plaques Committee. His major books include The Rise and Fall of the British Aristocracy, Ornamentalism and Mellon: A Life. He has previously taught at Cambridge, Columbia and London universities.

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Praise for Victorious Century

magnificent..a thumping great book, and it is probably destined to become a classic..Extraordinarily for a history book there are no footnotes. Only a historian at the very top of his game can do that and get away with it, and Cannadine succeeds triumphantly.
Jane Ridley, Spectator

A book such as this is a work of heroic summary.
David Aaronovitch, The Times

Reviews for THE UNDIVIDED PAST: 'Cannadine marshals modern scholarship, a sure historical sweep, and a confident polemic' Tristram Hunt; 'Cannadine urges us to see through [prejudices] and past them, to get away from the old chestnuts of class, race, gender and the rest, and to concentrate on exploring what brings us together'
Mark Mazower