Synopses & Reviews
A.N. Wilson does for the Victorians what Peter Ackroyd did for London.
People, not abstract ideas, make history, and nowhere is this more revealed than in this superb portrait of the Victorians in which hundreds of different lives have been pieced together to tell a story. In an entertaining and often dramatic narrative, A.N. Wilson shows us remarkable people in the very act of creating the Victorian age.
The industrial-capitalist world came into being because of actual businessmen, journalists and politicians. We meet them in the pages of this fascinating book. Their ideas were challenged by the ideas of other people, such as Karl Marx, William Morris and George Bernard Shaw. Here are the lofty and the famous -- Prince Albert, Lord Palmerston, Charles Dickens, Gladstone and Disraeli -- and here too are the poor and the obscure -- doctors ministering to cholera victims in the big cities, young women working as models for the famous painters, the man who got the British hooked on cigarettes, the butchers and victims of conflict in Ireland, India and Africa. In this authoritative, accessible and insightful book, A.N. Wilson tells a great story -- one that is still unfinished in our own day.
From the Hardcover edition.
Synopsis
People, not abstract ideas, make history, and nowhere is this more revealed than in A. N. Wilson's superb portrait of the Victorians, in which hundreds of different lives have been pieced together to tell a story - one which is still unfinished in our own day. The 'global village' is a Victorian village and many of the ideas we take for granted, for good or ill, originated with these extraordinary, self-confident people. What really animated their spirit, and how did they remake the world in their view? In an entertaining and often dramatic narrative, A. N. Wilson shows us remarkable people in the very act of creating the Victorian age.
Synopsis
A.N. Wilson does for the Victorians what Peter Ackroyd did for London.
The two great inventions of the Victorians -- industrial capitalism and imperialism are here illuminated through the people who built them.
In this panoramic survey of the Victorian Age, award-winning biographer A.N. Wilson describes the men and women who brought the modern age into being: businessmen, journalists, politicians. They were challenged by the ideas of such men as Karl Marx, William Morris and George Bernard Shaw.
From the lofty and famous to the poor and obscure, as well as the butchers and victims of conflict in Ireland, India and Africa, they’re all here in a wonderful mosaic of lives pieced together to tell a story -- one that is still unfinished in our own day.
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
A.N. Wilson is the author of Sir Walter Scott, Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis, Hilaire Belloc. He is also a celebrated novelist and has held prominent positions at the
Evening Standard and
The Spectator.
From the Hardcover edition.