Queen Victoria's Empire

Under Queen Victoria, the force of England's industrial and military power propelled the British Empire to its zenith. Prime Ministers Gladstone and Disraeli, and adventurers such as Livingstone and Rhodes, shaped a distinctively British imperialism. It is the story of how a small island nation would come to control three-fourths of the world's trade and one-fifth of its population in one of the greatest empires the world has known.