The Great Exhibition. - Review - book review

Contemporary Review, July, 2000

The Great Exhibition. John R. Davis. Sutton Publishing. [pound]20.00/US$36.00. 238 pages. ISBN 0-7509-1614-1. The Great Exhibition of 1851, held in Hyde Park, has become a symbol of Victorian selfconfidence and ordered social change. The exhibition was intended as a way to show the world the achievements of an industrialised and now urbanised Britain.

It then became a forum at which all the world's industrialised nations could show off their products. Despite its many critics it soon became much more, a symbol of international understanding through the free trade in manufacturing, goods and ideas. The profits from the exhibition were used to create 'Albertopolis', that collection of museums, schools and halls in Kensington all of which were to promote advancement in learning. In this book Mr Davis aims 'to present an account ... that is free of the generalisation, partisanship and moral censure of past writing'. He draws on original sources, both printed and in manuscript. This work illustrates a much needed corrective to the 'anti-Victorian' attitude that has warped a balanced judgment on one of the greatest periods in British history. For that, if not for its pleasant style and breadth of research, this book should be welcomed by anyone interested in this country's recent history.