This is it, the 1st since the official & monumental study by Monypenny & Buckle which appeared deecades ago. Blake deals with Disraeli's political style & above all with the legend that he was moved by a consistent philosophy of Tory radicalism which he conceived in his youth & later put into practice. In place of this, he presents a man moved far less by principle than by sheer zest for "the great game", loving power & skillfully maneuvering to get & hold it. Paradoxically, Blake shows how this may have made him far more effective in steering the Tory party into new paths than any man of principle could have been. Disraeli presents a lively portrait of an extraordinary man & of his age. Without ever deviating far from his subject, Blake illuminates the whole arena of Victorian politics. The character he presents is more subtle & fascinating than the conventional image. Altho his origins were less obscure than he liked people to believe, his youth was extraordinarily disreputable for a future Prime Minister & an aura of raffishness hindered him until late in his career. The book follows Disraeli's slow climb to power from the time when the young novelist & dandy failed repeatedly to get into Parliament at all, thru his period as a neglected backbencher until finally achieving the Leadership of the Tory Party in the House of Commons &, late in life, becoming Victoria's confidant & perhaps most favored Prime Minister. Many characters crowd into the book: the brilliant young men of "Young England"; Disraeli's family, friends, wife & mistresses; his colleagues & opponents in parliament, including Peel, whom he destroyed as an effective political leader, & Gladstone, who hated him; Queen Victoria, whose relationship with him verges on the comic to those reading it some generations later; & the great landed families into whose society Disraeli was finally admitted. A whole vanished world comes to life in this book. In its center stands the brilliant, enigmatic figure of one who was perhaps the most atypical inhabitant, but who has come to symbolize, for Americans at least, the Victorian Age.

    It is a table, listing the qualities of a couple. One column reads ‘Often says what he does not think’, ‘He does not show his feelings’, ‘He is a genius’; the other ‘Never says what she does not think', ‘She shows her feelings’, ‘She is a dunce’. The writing is Mary Anne Disraeli’s: the qualities listed contrast her with her husband, Benjamin Disraeli, one of the foremost politicians of the Victorian age.The daughter of a sailor, on her second marriage and 12 years older than her husband, Mary Anne was highly eccentric, liable to misbehave and (worse still) overdressed for grand society dinners. Her beloved Diz was of Jewish descent, a mid-ranking novelist and frequently mired in debt. He was fiercely protective and completely devoted to his wife. She was devoted to him, too, and they were both devoted to the very idea of being devoted. They wrote passionate letters to one another through their courtship and their marriage, spinning their unusual tale into a romance worthy of the novels they so loved.Reading between the lines of a great cache of their letters and the anecdotes of others in chilly Oxford reading rooms, Daisy Hay shows how the Disraelis rose to the top of the social and political pile. Along the way, we meet women of a similar station and situation whose endings were far unhappier than Mary Anne’s, acting as a counterpoint to her fairy tale ending as the landed Angel of the Prime Minister’s House.In an age where first ladies are under ever-increasing pressure to perform and conform, Mr and Mrs Disraeli offers a portrait of one who refused to do either, in a society which demanded she do both.

    It will be a brave, not to say foolhardy, author who attempts to write another life of Churchill for at least a decade, perhaps longer."--Andrew Roberts, Sunday Telegraph Roy Jenkins combines unparalleled command of British political history and his own high-level government experience in a narrative account of Churchill's astounding career that is unmatched in its shrewd insights, its unforgettable anecdotes, the clarity of its overarching themes, and the author's nuanced appreciation of his extraordinary subject.Exceptional in its breadth of knowledge and distinguished in its stylish wit and penetrating intelligence, Churchill is one of the finest political biographies of our time.

    Exploring the family's lineage from the first Stuart king to the last, The Royal Stuarts is a panoramic history of the family that acted as a major player in the Scottish Wars of Independence, the Union of the Crowns, the English Civil War, the Restoration, and more.Drawing on the accounts of historians past and present, novels, and plays, this is the complete story of the Stuart family, documenting their path from the salt marshes of Brittany to the thrones of Scotland and England and eventually to exile. The Royal Stuarts brings to life figures like Mary, Queens of Scots, Charles I, and Bonnie Prince Charlie, uncovering a family of strong affections and fierce rivalries. Told with panache, this is the gripping true story of backstabbing, betrayal, and ambition gone awry.

    By the end of the 1930s they had lost not only a generation of sons in the First World War, but also much of their prosperity, prestige, and political significance.Deftly orchestrating an enormous array of documents and letters, facts, and statistics, David Cannadine shows how this shift came about--and how it was reinforced in the aftermath of the Second World War. Astonishingly learned, lucidly written, and sparkling with wit, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy is a landmark study that dramatically changes our understanding of British social history.

    The younger William Pitt -- known as the 'schoolboy' -- began his days as Prime Minister in 1783 deeply underestimated and completely beleaguered. Yet he annihilated his opponents in the General Election the following year and dominated the governing of Britain for twenty-two years, nearly nineteen of them as Prime Minister. No British politician since then has exercised such supremacy for so long. Pitt presided over dramatic changes in the country's finances and trade, brought about the union with Ireland, but was ultimately consumed by the years of debilitating war with France. Domestic crises included unrest in Ireland, deep division in the royal family, the madness of the King and a full-scale naval mutiny. He enjoyed huge success, yet died at the nadir of his fortunes, struggling to maintain a government beset by a thin majority at home and military disaster abroad; he worked, worried and drank himself to death. Finally his story is told with the drama, wit and authority it deserves.

    Ricks, a dual biography of Winston Churchill and George Orwell, whose farsighted vision and inspired action preserved democracy from the threats of authoritarianism, from the left and right alike.Both George Orwell and Winston Churchill came close to death in the mid-1930s—Orwell shot in the neck in a trench line in the Spanish Civil War, and Churchill struck by a car in New York City. If they'd died then, history would scarcely remember them. At the time, Churchill was a politician on the outs, his loyalty to his class and party suspect. Orwell was a mildly successful novelist, to put it generously. No one would have predicted that by the end of the 20th century they would be considered two of the most important people in British history for having the vision and courage to campaign tirelessly, in words and deeds, against the totalitarian threat from both the left and the right. In a crucial moment, they responded first by seeking the facts of the matter, seeing through the lies and obfuscations, and then acting on their beliefs. Together, to an extent not sufficiently appreciated, they kept the West's compass set toward freedom as its due north.It's not easy to recall now how lonely a position both men once occupied. By the late 1930s, democracy was discredited in many circles and authoritarian rulers were everywhere in the ascent. There were some who decried the scourge of communism, but saw in Hitler and Mussolini men we could do business with, if not in fact saviors. And there were others who saw the Nazi and fascist threat as malign but tended to view communism as the path to salvation. Churchill and Orwell, on the other hand, had the foresight to see clearly that the issue was human freedom—that whatever its coloration, a government that denied its people basic freedoms was a totalitarian menace and had to be resisted.In the end, Churchill and Orwell proved their age's necessary men. The glorious climax of Churchill and Orwell is the work they both did in the decade of the 1940s to triumph over freedom's enemies. And though Churchill played the larger role in the defeat of Hitler and the Axis, Orwell's reckoning with the menace of authoritarian rule in Animal Farm and 1984 would define the stakes of the Cold War for its 50-year course and continues to give inspiration to fighters for freedom to this day. Taken together, in Thomas E. Ricks' masterful hands, their lives are a beautiful testament to the power of moral conviction and to the courage it can take to stay true to it, through thick and thin.

    Banker, man of letters, inventor of the Treasury bill, and author of Lombard Street, the still-canonical guide to stopping a run on the banks, Bagehot prescribed the doctrines that—decades later—inspired the radical responses to the world’s worst financial crises.Born in the small market town of Langport, just after the Panic of 1825 swept across England, Bagehot followed in his father’s footsteps and took a position at the local family bank—but his influence on financial matters would soon spread far beyond the county of Somerset. Persuasive and precocious, he came to hold sway in political circles, making high-profile friends, including William Gladstone—and enemies, such as Lord Overstone and Benjamin Disraeli. As a prolific essayist on wide-ranging topics, Bagehot won the admiration of Matthew Arnold and Woodrow Wilson, and delighted in paradox. He was also a misogynist, and while he opposed slavery, he misjudged Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. As editor of the Economist, he offered astute commentary on the financial issues of his day, and his name lives on in an eponymous weekly column. He has been called "the Greatest Victorian."In James Grant’s colorful and groundbreaking biography, Bagehot appears as both an ornament to his own age and a muse to our own. Drawing on a wealth of historical documents, correspondence, and publications, Grant paints a vivid portrait of the banker and his world.

    The Prime Ministers, edited by leading political commentator Iain Dale, brings to life all 55 of Britain's 'First Among Equals' with an essay for each office holder, written by key figures in British politics. From the obscure 18th-century figures like the Earl of Shelburne to 20th-century titans like Churchill and Thatcher, this book provides a much-needed reminder about their motivations, failures and achievements.

    Antonia Fraser, a popular historian, has delved into archives across Europe to unravel the true story of the plot by fanatical Roman Catholics to blow up the Houses of Parliament and King James I at the opening of Parliament in 1605.

    Hers was the first English translation of Flaubert's Mme Bovary. She pioneered the theatre of Henrik Ibsen. She was the first woman to lead the British dock workers' and gas workers' trades unions. For years she worked tirelessly for her father, Karl Marx, as personal secretary and researcher. Later she edited many of his key political works, and laid the foundations for his biography. But foremost among her achievements was her pioneering feminism. For her, sexual equality was a necessary precondition for a just society.Drawing strength from her family and their wide circle, including Friedrich Engels and Wilhelm Liebknecht, Eleanor Marx set out into the world to make a difference - her favourite motto: 'Go ahead!' With her closest friends - among them, Olive Schreiner, Havelock Ellis, George Bernard Shaw, Will Thorne and William Morris - she was at the epicentre of British socialism. She was also the only Marx to claim her Jewishness. But her life contained a deep sadness: she loved a faithless and dishonest man, the academic, actor and would-be playwright Edward Aveling. Yet despite the unhappiness he brought her, Eleanor Marx never wavered in her political life, ceaselessly campaigning and organising until her untimely end, which - with its letters, legacies, secrets and hidden paternity - reads in part like a novel by Wilkie Collins, and in part like the modern tragedy it was.

    The Regency (1811–1820) began when the profligate Prince of Wales—the future king George IV—replaced his insane father, George III, as Britain’s ruler.Around the regent surged a society steeped in contrasts: evangelicalism and hedonism, elegance and brutality, exuberance and despair. The arts flourished at this time with a showcase of extraordinary writers and painters such as Jane Austen, Lord Byron, the Shelleys, John Constable, and J. M. W. Turner. Science burgeoned during this decade, too, giving us the steam locomotive and the blueprint for the modern computer.Yet the dark side of the era was visible in poverty, slavery, pornography, opium, and the gothic imaginings that birthed the novel Frankenstein. With the British military in foreign lands, fighting the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the War of 1812 in the United States, the desire for empire and an expanding colonial enterprise gained unstoppable momentum. Exploring these crosscurrents, Robert Morrison illuminates the profound ways this period shaped and indelibly marked the modern world.

    In this epic history, Dan Jones vividly resurrects this fierce and seductive royal dynasty and its mythic world. We meet the captivating Eleanor of Aquitaine, twice queen and the most famous woman in Christendom; her son, Richard the Lionheart, who fought Saladin in the Third Crusade; and King John, a tyrant who was forced to sign Magna Carta, which formed the basis of our own Bill of Rights. This is the era of chivalry, of Robin Hood and the Knights Templar, the Black Death, the founding of Parliament, the Black Prince, and the Hundred Year’s War. It will appeal as much to readers of Tudor history as to fans of 'Game of Thrones.

    Born in obscurity in Putney, he became a fixer for Cardinal Wolsey in the 1520s. After Wolsey's fall, Henry VIII promoted him to a series of ever greater offices, such that in the 1530s he was effectively running the country for the King. That decade was one of the most momentous in English history: it saw a religious break with the Pope, unprecedented use of parliament, the dissolution of all monasteries, and the coming of the Protestantism. Cromwell was central to all this, but establishing his role with precision has been notoriously difficult.Diarmaid MacCulloch's biography is the most complete life ever written of this elusive figure, making connections not previously seen and revealing the channels through which power in early Tudor England flowed. It overturns many received interpretations, for example that Cromwell and Anne Boleyn were allies because of their common religious sympathies, showing how he in fact destroyed her. It introduces the many different personalities contributing to these foundational years, all worrying about what MacCulloch calls the 'terrifyingly unpredictable' Henry VIII, and allows readers to feel that they are immersed in all this, that it is going on around them. For a time, the self-made 'ruffian', as he described himself - ruthless, adept in the exercise of power, quietly determined in religious revolution - was master of events. MacCulloch's biography for the first time reveals his true place in the making of modern England and Ireland, for good and ill.

    She was a mother of nine and grandmother of forty-two and the matriarch of royal Europe through her children’s marriages. To many, Queen Victoria is a ruler shrouded in myth and mystique, an aging, stiff widow paraded as the figurehead to an all-male imperial enterprise. But in truth, Britain's longest-reigning monarch was one of the most passionate, expressive, humorous and unconventional women who ever lived, and the story of her life continues to fascinate.A. N. Wilson's exhaustively researched and definitive biography includes a wealth of new material from previously unseen sources to show us Queen Victoria as she’s never been seen before. Wilson explores the curious set of circumstances that led to Victoria's coronation, her strange and isolated childhood, her passionate marriage to Prince Albert and his pivotal influence even after death and her widowhood and subsequent intimate friendship with her Highland servant John Brown, all set against the backdrop of this momentous epoch in Britain’s history — and the world’s.Born at the very moment of the expansion of British political and commercial power across the globe, Victoria went on to chart a unique course for her country even as she became the matriarch of nearly every great dynasty of Europe. Her destiny was thus interwoven with those of millions of people — not just in Europe but in the ever-expanding empire that Britain was becoming throughout the nineteenth century. The famed queen had a face that adorned postage stamps, banners, statues and busts all over the known world.Wilson's Victoria is a towering achievement, a masterpiece of biography by a writer at the height of his powers.