Clash of the titans

This is an odd book: interesting, informative, intelligent, but still decidedly odd. It is a history of the Victorian era which almost entirely eschews wars and imperial adventures and concentrates instead on the social, political and intellectual climate of the times.  This is still a vast spectrum. Simon Heffer concludes that he must decide which facets deserve attention and picks out those which interest and entertain him most; hence the occasional oddity. Can the building of the Albert Memorial really be worth 30 pages? Or the conflict over the style of architecture to be adopted for the new government buildings in Whitehall be worth 20?

Fortunately, Heffer is not only interested and entertained by these relatively peripheral issues but contrives also to interest and entertain the reader. The battle between Lord Palmerston and the architect George Gilbert Scott over the new Foreign Office and War Office buildings is described in fascinating detail.