The Victorian Vision: Inventing New Britain

One hundred years after the death of Queen Victoria, Western culture still bears the indelible imprint of her reign. The hallmarks of the modern world—global commerce and communications, shopping and leisure, sports and entertainment—first emerged during the Victorian era. This landmark book, published to accompany a major exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, immerses readers in a wealth of imagery and facts that bring to life this extraordinary period of human achievement.

The Victorian Vision presents life in the latter part of the 19th century on both a grand and intimate scale, from the small innovations that began to transform domestic life to the huge societal shifts brought about by expanded rail and maritime travel to the new trends in art and design fueled by access to Africa and the East. With superb illustrations and expert texts that illuminate their subject without confining it within a 21st-century point of view, this book not only revisits a colorful period in history but also re-examines the origins of our own era.

John M. MacKenzie is a professor of Imperial history at Lancaster University in England. His acclaimed writings on the culture of imperialism include Propaganda and Empire and The Empire of Nature. He is consultant curator of the accompanying exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.