Nineteenth-Century Britain

First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew's Very Short Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Britain is a sharp but subtle account of remarkable economic and social change and an even more remarkable political stability. Britain in 1789 was overwhelmingly rural, agrarian, multilingual, and almost h...

First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew's Very Short Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Britain is a sharp but subtle account of remarkable economic and social change and an even more remarkable political stability. Britain in 1789 was overwhelmingly rural, agrarian, multilingual, and almost half Celtic. By 1914, when it faced its greatest test since the defeat of Napoleon, it was largely urban and English. Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew show the forces behind Britain's rise to its imperial zenith, and the continuing tensions within the nations and classes of the 'union state'.

克里斯托弗•哈维和科林•马修都在爱丁堡长大并接受教育。哈维曾执教开放大学，后成为德国图宾根大学的英国与爱尔兰研究教授，是现代苏格兰和北海石油方面的史学学者。科林•马修编撰了《格莱斯顿日记》，写了这位维多利亚政治家的传记并获奖，从1992年至1999年他逝世的这段时间，担任《新编英国传记大辞典》的主编。

韩敏中，北京大学英语系教授，博士生导师，主要从事19世纪英美文学的教学和研究。专著有《欧洲文学史—十九世纪卷》（合著），译著有《文化与无政府状态》和《殖民与后殖民文学》（合译）等。