Heyday - by Ben Wilson (Hardcover)

About the Book

A global history of the 1850s, the ambitious, explosive, and tumultuous decade that revolutionized the modern world

Book Synopsis

Heyday brings to life one of the most extraordinary periods in modern history. Over the course of the 1850s, the world was reshaped by technology, trade, mass migration and war. The global economy expanded fivefold, millions of families emigrated to the ends of the earth to carve out new lives, technology revolutionized how people communicated, and a steamships and railways cut across vast continents and oceans, shrinking the world and creating the first global age. It was a decade of breathtaking and remorseless transformation, fueled by the promise of exponential progress.

In Heyday, the acclaimed historian Ben Wilson recreates this time of explosive energy and dizzying change, a rollercoaster ride of booms and busts. The 1850s were witness to the laying of the first undersea cable in 1851, the rush for gold from California to Australia, and fleets of pirate vessels docked in Hong Kong harbor, eager to take advantage of booming trade. The West's insatiable hunger for land, natural resources, and new markets encouraged free trade, bold exploration, and colonization like never before.

Buoyed by supreme self-confidence -- as well as new technologies of war -- nations clashed across the globe, and indigenous peoples fell victim to an assurgent West. Reckless economic expansion led to lasting ecological damage, and to the demise of local cultures which could not keep pace with the blistering pace of capitalism and free trade. In Heyday we encounter Muslim guerrilla fighters in the Caucasus Mountains and freelance empire-builders in the jungles of Nicaragua, British free trade zealots preying on China and samurai warriors resisting Western incursions in Japan.

A dazzling history of a tumultuous decade, Heyday traces the origins of our globalized world order.

Review Quotes

Washington Times
"[Wilson] skillfully melds seeming disparate happenings -- a global jigsaw, if you will -- into a narrative that is both convincing and entertainingly readable."

Choice
"An insightful and engaging portrait of the world in the 1850s."

Daily Telegraph, UK
"[With] a rip-roaring style to match his subject.... [Wilson's] grasp of the interplay between politics, economics and individuals is admirable.
This is narrative history of the highest quality."

The Times, UK
"[A] rollercoaster of a book...the scholarship is certainly impressive but the drama is what delights. Wilson's knack for detail is what brings this history alive.... Heyday is a lot like its subject; it's a big-bearded book of enormous scope and unstoppable momentum."

Roanoke Times
"This is history as it should be told -- all those momentous events born in a bucket of Malay sap."

Publishers Weekly
"Wilson turns his considerable talents as a historian and raconteur to the turbulent 1850s... making a persuasive case for the decade as both precursor and crucible of today's world."

Kirkus Reviews
"An above-average addition to the when-the-modern-age-began genre."

About the Author

Ben Wilson received his MPhil in history from Cambridge University. He is the author of five critically acclaimed books, including What Price Liberty?, which won the Somerset Maugham Award. He lives in Suffolk, England.