In the sixteen years between 1851 and 1867 the world underwent a revolution. The telegraph made nations interconnected as never before; railways spread across continents; steam-powered ships, tunnels and mighty bridges became the symbols of a dynamic age. Technological innovation led to one of the world's great population upheavals, which in turn sparked political and social revolution as travellers imported new ideas and ways of life to all corners of the map. It was a time of sudden and intense modernisation; the effects reverberated around the globe. This is a thrilling passage of world history: a time of restless activity, exploration, innovation and exhilaration. HEYDAY gathers these changes and events into a logical narrative told through the overlapping, interlinked biographies of a group of men and women who were emblematic of their times. From filibusters to female explorers their stories illuminate ten major themes that came to dominate the world after 1851: the impact of technology, the news revolution, discovery, mass migration, resistance to Western predominance, Western chauvinism in giving order to the world, democratisation, nation-building, globalised free trade and the steady growth of imperialism. This was the heyday of the Victorian age.
It is crowded with extraordinary events and moments of adventure. In this time the pace of life increased beyond all comparison. Population movements, free trade and electronic communications bound the world together. In less than two decades new nations sprang into existence; discoveries of real importance were made; lines of communication connected the corners of the planet; and alien civilisations encountered each other for the first time. Knowledge, ideas, news and commodities ricocheted around the world, changing everyday life for good. If Jules Verne had proposed ROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS in 1851 he would have been roundly mocked. Yet by 1874, when Verne's novel was published, such journeys were undertaken by tourists: they were living in what was, for the first time, a truly interconnected world.