Christopher Harvie

Chronologically confusing, following themes rather than a reign by reign or government by government approach.

My overall impression of this British history series is that they work better as refresher courses rather than introductions, despite the titles.

An excellent Very Short Introduction to the history of Britain in the Nineteenth Century. A lot of things I recall from grammar school in the 1960s but much more I do not recall being taught at all - poverty, taxation, women, trades unions, the Left and the rise of what became the Labour Party, agriculture ...

This appears to be a CliffNotes version of a longer textbook. It requires a fair amount of knowledge of English history background, the subject is so vast that names, events and places are not explained by assumed to be understood. It's sort of the worst of all worlds, a text loaded with dry statistics and no central "big picture", then condensed. Parts are good, worth skimming through and picking out the sections and chapters of interest and for the recent bibliography.

--Review by Stephen show more Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2008 cc-by-nd show less

Really short into to the Nineteenth Century in Britain. Short, but informative.