Modern Victorians

Overview

Postwar culture has not merely been driven by the same qualities and impulses that shaped Victorian Britain - it has also demonstrated many of the same anxieties and preoccupations of that period. In particular, the two main concerns of the Victorian age were the state of the nation, and what might be termed our civilising mission - the desire to export British values to the far corners of globe. In a sense, postwar culture has been a process of working through our changing position - coming to terms with our loss of place in the world, and facing up to the legacy of empire. In so doing, it has reflected a profoundly Victorian series of concerns.