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

Heffer has written a stunning overview of the great and the good and the not-so-good of Victorian society and of the changes which a largely benevolent capitalism brought about. * Sarah Bradford, The Literary Review * High Minds is worthy to the task: serious, scholarly, grand and determined...an excellent guide to the aesthetics of the age. * Tristram Hunt, New Statesman * [ I]t is really a whole bookshelf of books. If you want a succinct volume on the Clarendon Commission and the debates on education, there is a not-so-slim volume embedded here. There is another on the desperate case of the formidable Caroline Norton and the battle to give women rights...another on the great philanthropists; another on crime and punishment; another (wonderfully detailed and compelling) on the Great Exhibition and the foundation of Albertopolis; another on the sewers; a terrific essay on the struggle between Gothic and Italianate architecture; and of course plenty of politics...This is a great sweeping, confident book, demonstrating the self-same energy and passion as do the Victorian heroes Heffer celebrates. It is a magnificent achievement. * William Waldegrave, The Times * [ A] stimulating and thoroughly enjoyable book...[ Heffer] is sometimes tendentious but never unreasonable, writes notably well and provides an admirable introduction to a period of history which many of us will think that we know quite well but have never considered from this point of view before. * Philip Ziegler, The Spectator * High Minds is partly social history, partly a history of ideas. It is the personalities involved that contribute such liveliness to this assured and magisterial narrative. * Matthew Dennison, The Sunday Telegraph * There is something enormously refreshing about reading a history book with such a passionate moral agenda, as well as one with such scope, energy and intellectual clarity. High Minds is a book Heffers heroes would have loved and perhaps there is no higher compliment than that. * Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times * [ A]bsolutely riveting . . . As dramatic as he is bold, as droll as he insightful, Heffer keeps his foot firmly on the throttle throughout, ensuring the narrative never flags. * John Preston, Daily Mail * Magnificent... [ A] gloriously detailed narrative. -- S J D Green * Standpoint * This important book provides a detailed overview of 40 years in the Victorian era in which British life was transformed beyond recognition ... The book demonstrates a depth of research letting the evidence speak for itself ... this pacy account will have you gripped. * Daily Mail * A rich, readable and unashamedly moralistic anti-Strachey. * Sunday Times *