The Time Traveller’s Guide To Regency Britain
Ian Mortimer
Bodley Head, 432 pages, £20 enjoyed by George IV. The appalling conditions under which children worked in mills are also recounted. The contrast between such experiences is stark.
Mortimer draws on a range of contemporary sources, and the narrative extends from the cost of a hairbrush to the implications of the Industrial Revolution. He also discusses how we should interpret and understand the past. However, in a section about racism, uncensored terms of racial abuse appear in the text. I was troubled by this approach, and the use of language that remains harmful in the present.