# High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain - Hardcover

by **Simon Heffer** (Author)

**An ambitious exploration of the making of the Victorian Age--and the Victorian mind--by a master historian.**

Britain in the 1840s was a country wracked by poverty, unrest, and uncertainty; there were attempts to assassinate the queen and her prime minister; and the ruling class lived in fear of riot and revolution. By the 1880s it was a confident nation of progress and prosperity, transformed not just by industrialization but by new attitudes to politics, education, women, and the working class. That it should have changed so radically was very largely the work of an astonishingly dynamic and high-minded group of people--politicians and philanthropists, writers and thinkers--who in a matter of decades fundamentally remade the country, its institutions and its mindset, and laid the foundations for modern society.

_High Minds_ explores this process of transformation as it traces the evolution of British democracy and shows how early laissez-faire attitudes to the fate of the less fortunate turned into campaigns to improve their lives and prospects. The narrative analyzes the birth of new attitudes in education, religion, and science. And _High Minds_ shows how even such aesthetic issues as taste in architecture collided with broader debates about the direction that the country should take.

In the process, Simon Heffer looks at the lives and deeds of major politicians; at the intellectual arguments that raged among writers and thinkers such as Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, and Samuel Butler; and at the "great projects" of the age, from the Great Exhibition to the Albert Memorial. Drawing heavily on previously unpublished documents, he offers a superbly nuanced portrait into life in an extraordinary era, populated by extraordinary people--and show how the Victorians' pursuit of perfection gave birth to the modern Britain we know today.

### Author Biography

**Simon Heffer** took a PhD in modern history at Cambridge. His previous books include: _The Age of Decadence;_ _Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle_; _Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell_; _Power and Place: The Political Consequences of King Edward VII_; and _Nor Shall My Sword: The Reinvention of England._ In a thirty-year career on Fleet Street, he has held senior editorial positions on _The Daily Telegraph_ and _The Spectator_ and is now a columnist for _The Sunday Telegraph._ He lives in London.

**Number of Pages:** 896

**Dimensions:** 2.2 x 9.21 x 6.14 IN

**Illustrated:** Yes

**Publication Date:** April 05, 2022

## Details

- **Price:** 39.95 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 39.95 USD | In stock |

## Images

- High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain - Hardcover
- High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain - Hardcover

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