Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Eminent Victorians, 13 Oct 2006
The story of Gladstone and Disraeli is the story of British parliamentary politics for much of the nineteenth century. In The Lion and the Unicorn, Richard Aldous tells the tale with a masterly admixture of narrative panache, dramatic intelligence and sheer enjoyment that makes him the natural successor to Lytton Strachey and Simon Schama. Aldous is a historian who combines incisive political commentary with the gusto and empathy of a great biographer. The result is a book that charts the growth to political maturity of two bitter rivals who between them dominated Westminster and party politics in Britain for decades.
In less able hands, The Lion and the Unicorn would falter under the pressure of disclosing so much material (and telling two life stories at once), but from the outset Aldous reassures the reader as to his strategic brilliance in handling so complex a narrative. The book begins with the funeral of Benjamin Disraeli in 1881. From that unexpected vantage point,Gladstone surveys the six decades of their relationship which, as Aldous remarks, would come to define Britain itself.
I recommend this book unreservedly for its sheer narrative power(especially with regard to Gladstone's anguished private life which is poignantly portrayed against the backdrop of high drama in the Commons) and for its pellucid discussion of Whig and Tory reform bills by which Britain somewhat indirectly attained the full practice of democracy. Above all, perhaps, The Lion and the Unicorn vividly reanimates the chronicle of British political life in the nineeteenth century at a time when our sense of Britain's imperial past has either faded or fallen into disrepute. This clever and gripping book should restore perspective to that past; it should be read by anyone who wishes to understand the formative impact of personality on British politics.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Aldous's triumph., 2 Feb 2007
This book, quite simply is excellent. It thoroughly researched, well written and an entertaining, nay, gripping read. Complex subject matter is dealt with masterfully, rendering it understandable and not diminishing its complexity. Gladstone and Disraeli are portrayed as human, not simply worshipped. Both a treated fairly and to book is very balanced. The primary source material is often familiar but is very well delivered nonetheless. The collection of images selected is arresting and enlightening, complimenting the wonderful imagery of the text.
An excellent book to grab the attention of a simply curious history-lover, or primer/introduction to give hope to the downhearted and bored A-level/degree student of British political history.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The dandy and the demagogue, 10 Mar 2007
Great rivalries always fascinate. And great rivalries up and down the greasy pole of politics are always going to have verve and drama in the hands of a good narrative writer.
And Richard Aldous is certainly that. This sympathetic, wry account of how two absolute opposites - culturally and psychologically as well as politically - smashed into each other as the British Empire reached its apogee hurtles along at a fantastic pace. The drama's driven not only by the characters but by the pendulum of power constantly swinging between them so that when Disraeli's stock is high, Gladstone's is inevitably low; and vice versa. This is history which, in Alan Bennett's phrase, is very much `just one thing after another', and the pace never slacks. Disraeli and Gladstone loathed each other in an age when that didn't necessarily follow, in politics; but it was also an age in which the idea of a `party machine' emerged, the Liberals coalesced into form and the Conservatives redefined themselves not once, but twice. The political landscape suffered tremors; Gladstone and Disraeli rode the unrest (and sometimes caused it), flinging rocks at each other whilst fighting to stay on their feet.
True, sometimes the reader might wish for a little more background colour - some more detail in the prose, or a greater sense of context. But this - and the anticipation that a smattering of typos will be corrected in the paperback - is small beer. In fact, `The Lion and the Unicorn' wouldn't be the book it is if it were slower - and as it is, it's unputdownable.
Firmly recommended. Great fun.
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