Book Description

Benjamin Disraeli was perhaps the most colourful Prime Minister in British history. This seventh volume of the highly acclaimed Benjamin Disraeli Letters edition shows also that he was a dedicated, resourceful, and farsighted statesman. It contains 670 letters written between 1857 and 1859. They address friends, family, political colleagues, and, not least, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

During this period, Disraeli shepherded a fragile Conservative government through the Indian Mutiny, the Second Opium War with China, the Orsini bomb plot, and the Franco-Austrian-Piedmontese War, only to fail at home over parliamentary reform. Day-by-day politics and behind-the-scenes strategy dominate, while lighter-hearted letters to friends and family reveal the private Disraeli’s charm and wit.

With an appendix of 115 newly found letters dating from 1825, as well as information on 219 unfound letters, full annotations to each letter, an exhaustive name-and-subject index and a comprehensive introduction, this volume will be a vital resource for new understanding of this enigmatic statesman.

Book Description
Definitive, concise, and very interesting... From William Shakespeare to Winston Churchill, the Very Interesting People series provides authoritative bite-sized biographies of Britain's most fascinating historical figures - people whose influence and importance have stood the test of time. Each book in the series is based upon the biographical entry from the world-famous Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Disraeli
The author provides a thorough insight of the rise of a commoner of jewish descent to the highest political rank, Prime Minister and leader of the aristocratic Tory party.

Despite its initial slow start the book gathers pace as Disraeli developes into the skilled debater and master parlimentary tatician. The various interchanges between Gladstone, Peel, Bright, O'Connell and Derby make for interesting reading.

The author explores the relationships that Disraeli formed during his life and provides the reader with a glimpse of the era and the mind of the man through many extracts of private correspondance between the subject and his peers,friends and loves.

A thorough commentry of an interesting life. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Nicely surprised.
I am not well-versed in the history of the Royal Navy but found this book to be quite interesting. The author's willingness to take an unsparing look at the professional and personal motivations behind naval policy-makingduring this time is refreshing. Would recommend it to colleagues and navalbuffs, definitely. ... Read more

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Willis does it again
This text is a concise guide to the politics of a period dominated by the eponymous statesmen. The two individuals, both originally from the same political party - the Tory or Conservative Party - came to representmarkedly opposing positions on the political spectrum, and between themsustained a personal bitterness that enlivened the parliamentary politicsof the Mid and High Victorian periods. The Anglican - though Jewish byrace, and mindset - Benjamin Disraeli only managed to escape his myriaddebts late in life, and always had an eccentric approach to the pressingquestions of the day (on being asked on whose side in the great debate onDarwin's recently propounded theory of evolution he stood, Disraeli quippedthat he was "on the side of the Angels"). Neverthless, thisoutsider - who also found the time to be the world's highest paid novelistof his day - came to lead the great party of the establishment. His rival,William Gladstone, came from a wealthy, landed family, was educated at Eton& Oxford, in the bosom of the British ruling classes. Yet this dyed inthe wool High Anglican, came to lead a party that was to systematicallycurtail the rights of the landowning classes and uproot the privileges ofthe established church in the United Kingdom. Naturally, the bookprincipally focuses upon the High Victorian period of British politics,that is from the passage of the Second Reform Act of 1867, throughGladstone's first ministry (1868-1874) and onto Disraeli's second ministry(1874-1880). Essential information is placed in context by a judiciousselection of contemporaneous source material inviting readers to evaluatethe record of the two individuals for themselves. If anything, the book'sutility is hindered by an overly cautious approach on the part of theauthor to deliver his own assessment of the history of the period. Happily,the introduction succeeds in placing the men very much in their milieu, andan extensive bibliography gives pointers for readers to pursue theirstudies of the period & personalities further. The author, a tutor atBrentwood School, Essex, in the United Kingdom, has written a range ofintermediate level texts geared for the schools market. This book serves asa benchmark for all attempts to bring to life the struggles, issues anddrama of British politics & society in that period. ... Read more

Book Description
An adventurer and charlatan? A clever rogue? Or perspicacious politician, founder of the modern British Conservative party? These different characterizations have all had their supporters: Disraeli rarely inspired indifference from his contemporaries, and later commentators have often mirrored these divergent evaluations.By the time he at last became Prime Minister, in 1874, he was no longer the exotic, dandified figure who nearly forty years earlier had obtained protection from his creditors by the simple expedient of election to a seat in the House of Commons. But he was still a one-of-a-kind figure in Westminster politics, favorite of his monarch but distrusted or disliked by most of the members of his party.Disraeli was a novelist as well as a politician, and he showed in his political life a novelist's command of the potent image and pregnant phrase. His speeches and writings remain memorable and influential. But any icon is open to manipulation and selective understanding, and Disraeli in particular has been claimed as a spiritual ancestor by an exceptionally diverse group of conservatives. Edgar Feuchtwanger's lively new study does justice to Disraeli's controversial life and ambiguous political legacy, providing a portrait of one of the great personalities of the age as well as shedding light on key political developments of Victorian Britain. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Mysterious, Dicotomic and Distressing Personality
Disraeli did not become PM until 1874 just after his 70th birthday, at which time he was already a living myth, though much of the myth had been created and staged by 'Dizzy' himself.He began his ascendency into the high councils of England by becoming a writer of popular fiction.Though none of his early books could have been described as popular successes, they were the talk of the 'salons', who were peopled by the aristocracy and the shakers and movers of the victorian era.

He came from all the wrong parts of the wrong class, but was able to endear himself to many who were not as quick witted as he was.While playing the prig, satirist and clown he was able to make himself indispensible to the Tory frontbenchers. But he spent many years in the background and then as a lieutenant to Derby.

The book itself is very academic and written for an English/Commonwealth audience, so that americans might find that certain ideas are given short shrift because they are easily understood by the english public.For myself I don't have enough background in how the two houses of parliament functioned in concert to fully understand the Lords v Commons.Also I find the use of multiple names for the same people to be distracting like reading Tolstoy (Stanley, who becomes Lord Derby and then Duke of Something is just one example).

The writing is a little ponderous and you will find paragraphs that are almost two pages.It's also hard sometimes to tell where and who is being quoted.

A must read for English politics and history.
This is an insightful lesson into the man. Edgar Feuchtwanger makes the subject more interesting than ever with an easy to read style. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The principle of power
Of the great political figures of Victorian Britain, few have attracted the attention of Benjamin Disraeli.A converted Jew from a family of merchants and the son of a noted literary scholar, he rose in an aristocratic age to become Prime Minister of Great Britain.While numerous biographies have been written about him, most concentrate on his ostentatious personality, the style that characterized the man.Ian Machin's brief study, a volume in the "Profiles in Power" series, focuses instead on the political side of Disraeli's life, examining the positions and tactics he adopted over the course of his long career in public life.

Machin's book offers a good introduction to Disraeli and his politics, examining both his rise through the Tory ranks and his attitudes towards the prevailing issues in mid-Victorian politics..His contention is that the quest for power is the dominant theme running through Disraeli's career.To achieve it, Disraeli adopted an opportunistic approach in advocating policies or principles, trimming his sails to catch the prevailing political wind.This is most readily apparent in his economic policy, where Disraeli's advocacy of protectionism (which led to the destruction of Sir Robert Peel's government in 1846) was abandoned six years later in an attempt to improve his party's odds of winning seats in Parliament.Even after the Conservatives finally took office with a majority government in 1874, Machin notes, Disraeli possessed no legislative agenda beyond pursuing reform measures that would appeal to the public in an increasingly democratic age.

Though some might object to Machin's interpretation of Disraeli's career, this should not overshadow the overall qualities of the book.Balanced and insightful, it does a remarkable job of surveying Disraeli's life and career in such a short number of pages.For readers seeking to learn about this larger-than-life political figure, this is an excellent place to start. ... Read more

Book Description
Examines the major aspects of Disraeli's career and his legacy, asking how far his actions were governed by principles and how far by expediency. ... Read more

Book Description
Benjamin Disraeli remains a commanding figure in the history and ideology of the British Conservative party, and a remarkable example of ascent to high office from outside the traditional elite. This is the first book to bring together specialists in history, literary studies and psychiatry to offer fresh insight into the way in which he successfully fashioned his personality in the formative years before his emergence as Conservative leader. Topics include his education, Jewishness, romanticism, orientalism, psychological disposition, and historical and political ideas. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A useful collection of sharply foccussed essays.
Locates Disraeli in a European, cosmopolitan context, not merely as either a conservative empire-inventor or novelist but also as an outsider establishing himself as an insider. It contains a compelling essay on thebreakdown or hypomania he suffered in his 20s. ... Read more