Originally published on April 4, 2022 (Episode 258)
Introduction
Britain in the 1840s should have been, observes Simon Heffer, a time of social improvement. Instead it was a country beset by poverty, unrest, assassination attempts on Queen Victoria and her Prime Minister, and fears of revolution. Yet just forty years later, it had become a prosperous and progressive nation, transformed not only by industrialization, but also by political, scientific, religious, and educational change.
As Heffer shows in High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain (Pegasus Books, 2022), this was no accident—it was the result of a deliberate change of mind. Not merely new ideas, but a fundamental shift in how Victorians saw the world and their role in it.
About the Guest
Simon Heffer is a British journalist, essayist, historian, and author of numerous books, including lives of Thomas Carlyle and Enoch Powell. High Minds is the first volume of his sweeping history of modern Britain, followed by The Age of Decadence and Staring at God: Britain in the Great War.
For Further Investigation
Simon Heffer, High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain (Pegasus Books, 2022)
Simon Heffer, The Age of Decadence: A History of Britain 1880–1914 (Pegasus, 2021)
Simon Heffer, Staring at God: Britain in the Great War (Random House, 2019)
Related conversations:
Jonathan Rose on The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (Episode 228)
Will Hay on an overlooked Victorian Prime Minister (Episode XXX)
💬 Listen & Discuss
What does it mean for an entire society to change its “mind”? Was Victorian Britain exceptional, or does it offer lessons for us today? Share your reflections in the comments—and pass this along to a friend who loves history.
