The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain

Britain in the 1840s was 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. But by the 1880s Britain was a stable, confident country enjoying progress and prosperity with new attitudes toward politics, education, and the working class. How did the transformation happen so quickly? Historian Simon Heffer will tell us how a group of dynamic people remade a country.