18世紀末のイギリスは、まだ片田舎の農業国で、ケルト族の影響が色強く、多言語が用いられていました。そこから経済的・社会的な変革を経験したのが19世紀で、政治的にも安定し、あらゆる面で著しい発展を遂げました。ベストセラー『The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain』に収録していたテクストを一部抜粋したものである本書は、わかりやすい解説で、はじめて19世紀の英国史に触れる方に最適な一冊です。
   

• Most comprehensive and authoritative short guide to nineteenth-century Britain
• Highly acclaimed text, first published in the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain
• Revised and updated for this edition
• Indispensable for students and general readers

 
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'.