- Hardcover: 938 pages
- Publisher: W&N; 1st Edition edition (Oct 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0297817132
- ISBN-13: 978-0297817130
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.6 x 5.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
675,344 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #61 in Books > History > Other Historical Subjects > Historians > Roberts, Andrew
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Lord Salisbury (1830-1903) was a heavyweight Victorian politician in every sense of the word. Clocking the scales at 18 stone, the owner of a 20,000 acre landed estate at Hatfield and the writer of some two million words of political journalism, he combined the offices of Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister for 12 years at the close of the 19th century, presiding over the expansion of the British Empire overseas and the electoral dominance of the Conservative Party at home. Yet until now Lord Salisbury has been poorly served by biographers. Next to the flamboyant Disraeli and the mercurial Gladstone he is perhaps a less compelling subject, but his impact on Victorian politics and foreign policy was no less decisive. Andrew Roberts' bumper biography goes a long way to restoring Salisbury to his rightful place in the pantheon of great prime ministers. Roberts, whose earlier work has earned him the reputation as a right- wing revisionist, wears his politics lightly in this volume, weaving together a full and complex narrative in an accurate and scholarly fashion. He finds room for everything. The major set-pieces of diplomacy, rivalry with Disraeli, parliamentary reform, Home Rule and the modernisation of the Conservative Party are all there, but so too are fascinating glimpses of Salisbury's happy home life, his tinkering with science and technology and, throughout, a proper appreciation of his political journalism--"Toryism for the clever man". --Miles Taylor
Book Description
Radical biography of the ruthless, aristocratic genius, Lord Salisbury - Queen Victoria's Prime Minister and the mind behind the supremacy of the British Empire - by one of Britain's most talented young historians.
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'Scarlet and gold, azure and gold, purple and gold, emerald and gold, white and gold, always a changing tumult of colours that seemed to list and gleam with a light of their own, and always blinding gold,' recorded a spectator. Read the first page
Front Cover | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
'Scarlet and gold, azure and gold, purple and gold, emerald and gold, white and gold, always a changing tumult of colours that seemed to list and gleam with a light of their own, and always blinding gold,' recorded a spectator. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An sympathetic study of a neglected political giant,
By David Lowther (Sunderland, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Salisbury: Victorian Titan (Phoenix Press) (Paperback)
The sheer size of Andrew Roberts' weighty tome might suggest that it consists of a considerable amount of useless information leavened with the occassional anecdote, written in a dry and academic style. Not so. Roberts presents the facts in a clear, entertaining manner which leaves the reader thankful that Salisbury has fianlly got the biographer he deserves. Salisbury's life and achievements are dealt with in exhaustive detail, and Roberts' character sketches of the other major players of the period - Bismarck, Disraeli, Gladstone et al - are hugely informative and entertaining.It is clear that years of scholarship have gone into this biography. Contemporary sources and letters litter each chapter, allowing an insight into Salisbury's character and views on policy, as well as giving the reader the benefit of the phlegmatic politician's witty and concise style of writing. These sources come in particularly handy in the chapters dealing with Salisbury's foreign policy and his attitude to foreign powers, particularly Bismarckian Germany. It is interesting to wonder what the most accomplished foreign minister in British history would think were he able to analyse Britain's current situation in the world. On finishing this book it is sobering to reflect on the past acheivements of an age now long in the past, and it might just be possible that some of Salisbury's methods might still be relevent in the 21st century.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This Way For Superb English Prose,
By A Customer
This review is from: Salisbury: Victorian Titan (Hardcover)
Apropos of P.G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh once wrote that 'One has to regard a man as a Master who can produce on average three uniquely brilliant and entirely original similes to every page.' This just assessment of Wodehouse's analogical inventiveness comes to mind in reading Andrew Robert's biography of Salisbury, for, as Roberts' quotations amply demonstrate, Salibury was himself a master of analogy. Go to the index of Roberts' brilliant book and you can see for yourself his fecundity in this line under the 'views and opinions' entry. Here are some of my favorites: 'Colonial governorships,' he writes, should be looked on as 'convenient almshouses in which political incapables can be cheaply boarded and lodged.' And elsewhere he says, 'The commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcasses of dead policies. When a mast falls overboard, you do not try to save a rope here and a spar there, in memory of its former utility; you cut away the hamper altogether.' These and scores of other apt analogies splendidly substantiate Lord George Hamilton's claim that Salisbury was indeed 'the greatest master of compact and expressive language in politics.'
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly readable, closely argued, well researched - brilliant,
This review is from: Salisbury: Victorian Titan (Hardcover)
This biography has the level of research one would expect of the dryest of academic journals, yet the author has managed to make the work come alive. He achieves this both by his own elegant writing style and by his presentation of the man himself.This book is not just for those interested in the period but for anybody who enjoys history or biography from any period. The book is worth reading either for the joy of reading well argued, well written English, or for the simple pleasure of learning about an otherwise sadly little known life. The only comparable work I have read is one of Nero by Dr M Griffin - another brilliant biograhy of a historical figure.
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