In a panoramic survey of the Victorian Age, this work describes the men and women who brought the modern age into being. The capitalist world was challenged by the ideas of such men as Karl Marx, William Morris and George Bernard Shaw - here they are. Here are also the lofty and famous and here too are the poor and the obscure.

Sex, intrigue and adultery in the world of high politics and huge wealth in late eighteenth-century England.

Samuel Pepys achieved fame as a naval administrator, a friend and colleague of the powerful and learned, a figure of substance. But for nearly ten years he kept a private diary in which he recorded, with unparalleled openness and sensitivity to the turbulent world around him, exactly what it was like to be a young man in Restoration London.

In 1900 London was the capital of an empire that spanned the globe. This text examines the powerful city and its relationship with the British Empire at the turn of the century.

How did Britain's power and influence decline? Seeking to answer this question, this book begins with the reign of Edward VII, when Great Britain commanded the mightiest empire in the world. It ends with the Coronation of Elizabeth II, when Britain emerged victorious from a world war, but ruined as a world power.

A fresh, enlightening and comprehensive history of Britain in the early 1960s by a supremely talented young historian.