Inventing the Victorians - Matthew Sweet
An interesting and amusing zip through the Victorian age, although to be honest Sweet was preaching to the converted in my case. There are some occasional thought-provoking passages, like the chapter that points out the similarities between Dr Palmer, a Victorian murderer who is prized by the inhabitants of Rugeley, where he was arrested, and Harold Shipman, a modern murderer who is considerably less than prized by the inhabitants of Hyde, where he lived. The cult of sensationalism is worrying precisely for this reason - Palmer's killings were just as real and horrible as Shipman's, yet we remember the man who committed them with fondness. The Victorians, it turns out, can teach us some well-needed lessons about our own culture.
