Victorian Britain

This series of 36 fascinating lectures is a chronological journey into the story of Victorian Britain, from the unexpected ascension to the throne of teenaged Princess Victoria in 1837 to her death in 1901 as the Boer War neared its end. Presented with all of Victoria's strengths and foibles left intact by an award-winning teacher and author, the lectures invite you to reflect on both the positive and negative aspects of her reign. You'll discover the lives of Victorian women; the situation facing working people and the rise of trade unionism; Victorian achievements in art, literature, architecture, and music; and what Leonard Woolf called "the seriousness of games," and of leisure-time activities as windows on Victorian life. You'll discuss the important role played by Christianity as a force for both principled adherence to tradition and principled pursuit of change; and the influence of science and the debates over its impact that animated the Victorians. And you'll learn what the Victorians believed about education; the questions raised by Britain's rule over its empire, the problems of poverty and crime; the discoveries of Victorian explorers in Africa; and much more in this remarkable rendering of a remarkable age.

All Lectures:
1. The Victorian Paradox
2. Victoria's Early Reign - 1837-1861
3. The Industrial Revolution - 1750-1830
4. Railways and Steamships
5. Parliamentary Reform and Chartism
6. The Upper- and Middle-Class Woman
7. The Working-Class Woman
8. The State Church and Evangelical Revival
9. The Oxford Movement and Catholicism
10. Work and Working-Class Life
11. Poverty and the "Hungry Forties"
12. Ireland, Famine, and Robert Peel
13. Scotland and Wales
14. Progress and Optimism
15. China and the Opium War
16. The Crimean War - 1854-1856
17. The Indian Mutiny - 1857
18. Victorian Britain and the American Civil War
19. The British in Africa - 1840-1880
20. Victorian Literature I
21. Art and Music
22. Science
23. Medicine and Public Health
24. Architecture
25. Education
26. Trade Unions and the Labour Party
27. Crime and Punishment
28. Gladstone and Disraeli - 1865-1881
29. Ireland and Home Rule
30. Democracy and Its Discontents
31. The British in Africa - 1880-1901
32. Later Victorian Literature
33. Leisure
34. Domestic Servants
35. Victoria After Albert - 1861-1901
36. The Victorian Legacy