Journalist Simon Heffer shows how new attitudes to learning, politics and society in the Victorian age transformed Britain and ushered in the modern era. He looks at changing approaches to education, religion and science and how the old laissez-faire attitudes to the less fortunate turned into campaigns to improve their situation. Heffer looks at the lives and deeds of many eminent Victorians who led the way, including Gladstone, Disraeli, Thomas Carlyle, Samuel Butler and Charles Kingsley, and he examines some of the great projects of the age, notably the Great Exhibition and the Albert Memorial.

Heffer has spent more than 25 years working for national newspapers including holding senior positions at the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and Spectator. His previous books include Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle, and Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell.