Where the Sun Never Set
VICTORIOUS CENTURY: The United Kingdom, 1800–1906
BY DAVID CANNADINE
Viking, 624 pp., $40
IN THE VERY PLAY on words that is the title of this huge new book by the prolific Princeton historian David Cannadine, there is captured much of what is within. Yes, it is about Great Britain in the Victorian Age (and a bit before that), and it is about the monarchy and empire over which Victoria reigned. Even more, it is about a nearly always victorious people and a nation the latest installment in the Penguin History of Britain, is a multilayered study, much more than a textbook, yet at the same time a work that can now be regarded as the standard single-volume treatment of its subject—an admirably readable guide to the British history of the long 19th century.
