Nineteenth-Century Britain: A Very Short Introduction

Here is a sharp but subtle account of one hundred years of remarkable economic and social change--and an even more remarkable political stability. Britain in 1789 was overwhelmingly rural, agrarian, and almost half Celtic. By 1914, when it faced its greatest test since the defeat of Napoleon, it was largely urban and English. The authors highlight the forces behind Britain's rise to its imperial zenith. The effects of the Industrial Revolution caused cities to swell enormously. London, for example, grew from about 1 million people to over 6 million. Abroad, the British Empire was reaching its apex, while at home the world came to marvel at the Great Exhibition.

Christopher Harvie is Professor of British and Irish Studies at Tübingen in Germany. Colin Matthew is editor of the Gladstone Diaries and author of an award-winning life of the Victorian statesman.