Gladstone

by Roy Jenkins

Book Overview

From the New York Times bestselling author of Churchill, a towering historical biography, available for the first time in paperback. William Gladstone was, with Tennyson, Newman, Dickens, Carlyle, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679451447
• ISBN13: 9780679451440
• Release Date: February 1997
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 698 Pages
• Weight: 2.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.1" x 6.7" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

The Architect of the "Pax Victoria"

William Gladstone is probably the most recognized name in British life and politics during the period known as the Victorian era. His public life ran nearly concurrently with Queen Victoria's reign, usually not to his comfort or benefit, but his influence in government and public life was both an embodiment of the Victorian Age and at times a check upon its excesses. I spent a fair amount of time wondering if the United States had ever produced someone even remotely similar to Gladstone, and I have still come up empty. Gladstone entered Parliament in 1833 and gave his last address in 1894. Despite youthful political indiscretions, an early tendency toward controversial outspokenness in matters theological, religious eccentricities, a tendency toward micromanagement, a temperamental sovereign, and a mixed record as four-time prime minister, Gladstone navigated sixty-some years of public service in a fashion that earned him the universal title Grand Old Man. The Gladstone portrayed by Jenkins becomes a character greater than the sum of his parts, certainly at least as responsible for the Pax Victoria as Victoria herself, whose vanities of empire were stoked, unwisely as it proved, by Gladstone's lifelong rival, Disraeli. The young Gladstone fancied himself a theologian, and as a young MP produced a lengthy and polemical defense of the Anglican Church that fortuitously came to be forgotten in succeeding years. He never lost interest in theology, however, nor in the health of the established Anglican Church. The conversion of his friends Newman and Manning to Roman Catholicism troubled him, but the experience perhaps ameliorated a residual dogmatism to the point where he could converse with such as Charles Darwin in the latter's home. Religion would always be a major drive in Gladstone's life, but one of his religious practices has drawn particular interest over the years. Gladstone, during the first half of his life, believed he was called to rescue prostitutes from a life of sin. Jenkins is careful here to walk a thin line in his assessment of Gladstone's "ministry." He [Jenkins] concludes that while Gladstone probably did believe his work was religious, he did find erotic stimulation in visiting such women in their places of residence, but apparently without technical marital infidelity. Gladstone himself would admit later that he succeeded in converting perhaps one of the ninety or so women he frequented; his diary indicates that such activity caused him enough moral discomfort that he engaged in frequent self-flagellation. Fortunately for Gladstone, it was his legislative, oratorical, and administrative competence that shaped his public image. Somewhat like Churchill, he served in a number of government capacities, but clearly he was best suited as Chancellor of the Exchequer. American government does not have an equivalent officer who in effect draws up the nation's budget and establishes spending and taxing priorities for Parliament to v

state versus church

William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898), 4 times Prime Minister of Great Britain during the height of Britain's influence and imperial power, was an extraordinary leader and individual who repays close study. His life, like that of Queen Victoria herself, spanned most of the 19th century. He was perhaps the most eminent of the British Victorians. One can compare him only to Darwin in the extent to which he influenced the culture and lives of his countrymen during that century. He was fourth son of Sir John Gladstone, a wealthy merchant in Liverpool who attained his riches at least partially via his holdings in the slave-worked Carribean cotton and sugar plantations. Like many of the sons of the rich in England during the early Victorian period, William was educated at Eton and Christ College, Oxford. It was at Oxford apparently where the future prime Minister awoke to his three greatest passions: religion, politics and Homer. Gladstone's intellectual struggles with those three passions are very ably summarized in a coupl eof recent books on the man: Babbington's book on Gladstone's intellectual development and the biography here under review by Jenkins. It speaks well of Gladstone that he took seriously the question of how religion and politics, or church and state ought to be related both culturally and institutionally/legally. Gladstone really did grapple mightily with the issue and his labors did produce fruit it seems to me. In some ways Gladstone was the ideal man to pursue the question of Church and State. He was an able politician and administrator in a country where Church and State issues had been life or death matters for centuries. He was also a deeply religious man who read voraciously in theology and spirituality and who all his life engaged in regular prayer and ministry. On the other hand, though he was a very successful politician he was not a profound political thinker. He did not have the same deep grounding in either theology or in political philosophy that many of his contemporaries had. He knew enough, however, to know that he did not know and thus he very wisely sought counsel from the experts. Although he was an almost fanatical High Anglican churchman, he eagerly sought counsel from three Roman Catholics: the German theologian Dollinger, the convert John Henry Newman and the political historian Lord Acton. Three of these men, Gladstone, Acton and Dollinger, were lifelong friends who corresponded and met regularly over several decades. Newman corresponded with the 3 but was limited in his travel and meetings during to his clerical life and duties. Gladstone, Acton and Dollinger, nevertheless, held Newman in highest regard, though Gladstone always regretted Newman's conversion to Roman Catholicism. Gladstone's position on Church-state relations evolved along with his political views over the many years he spent in public life. When he graduated from Oxford in 1832, his father convinced the Duke of Newcastle to sponsor his so

Enchanting - An absolutely exceptional book.

Gladstone was a remarkable, complicated, even enigmatic man and Jenkins does not waste our time with the sort of pop-psychology projection and junk theories that ruin so much contemporary biography. Instead, Jenkins lets the facts speak for themselves, weighting them based on their demonstrable impact on Gladstone's own life and on British society viewed from the vantage point of 100 years or more of subsequent history. Gladstone emerges through records of his actions, the memoirs of his contemporaries, and his own diary. Jenkins resists the too-common modern conceit of pretending intimate knowledge of Gladstone as if through some astral mind-meld. Although he admits his own affection for the man, Jenkins lets readers decide for themselves what they think of this stubborn, courageous, long-winded, sanctimonious, and usually dead right -- even prophetic -- dynamo. Along the way there are delightful, balanced, spot-on portraits of some of Gladstone's contemporaries. The often-deified Disraeli comes out as a man of great talent, imagination, and political genius who was a self-absorbed, underhanded lightweight. (A portrayal such as that some modern critics have applied to Bill Clinton.) The slow intellectual and emotional curdling of Queen Victoria after the death of Prince Albert is as eloquent a meditation on the corruptions of isolation and power as I've read in some time. Spencer, Parnell, Hartington, Rosebery, Balfour, Joseph Chamberlain, Manning, Wilberforce, Palmerston -- all are here drawn with flavor and economy and no trace of bitterness or partisanship.One of the great strengths of this biography is that it never talks down to the reader. Jenkins is clearly an almost frighteningly literate individual, and his vocabulary occasionally sent me to the dictionary, but I consulted it in delight as every rare word was clearly used unselfconsciously by an author who knew it well and knew exactly what he was trying to say. (As Simon Winchester has noted, there are very few true synonyms in English.) More challenging in this regard may be the fact that the book, having been written for a British audience, assumes an elementary knowledge of the outlines of British history, which many American readers don't have. Just as a book about a prominent American nineteenth-century figure would not feel it necessary to produce extensive background on, say, the industrial revolution, the transcontinental railroad, or abolition, so Gladstone assumes the reader's familiarity with the Indian Raj, the expansion of the franchise, Britain's own industrial progress, and other subjects. My advice is to just jump right in anyway -- I myself was not well versed in these topics yet found the narrative so strong that the author's insights were easy to follow.

A Very British Biography

The negative reviews have a point. It does help if you understand British history before you read this book. And Jenkins assumes, without argument, that a major Victorian Prime Minister of England is, ipso facto, an important person worthy of the reader's time. One wonders how long a biography of Gladstone that did not assume knowledge of British history and of Gladstone's importance would have been. Certainly longer than the 700+ pages Jenkins delivers.The question is: what does one look for in buying a life of Gladstone? One answer is: "no history, nothing but biography, for that is life without theory".One must ask, however, whether Jenkins unfortunate epithet (used, e.g., for Charles Sumner's activity during the Alabama Claims) is appropriate. Jenkins must have had some other way to express the thought in a book published in 1997.

One heavyweight empathises with another

It took me two years after buying this book to have the courage to begin - its size and detail were daunting. Once I started to read I could scarcely put it down. Roy Jenkins writes smoothly and wittily and his many references to contempory politics bring the nineteenth century Parliament to life. Not far off his eightieth birthday himself, I believe, Jenkins has a lot in common with Gladstone - including his great learning and energy. The parallels between the two are part of the fascination of the book.Having long been an admirer of Disraeli at the expense of Gladstone, who often is made to appear pompous and puritanical, this reader is now convinced of the greatness of the latter: to be, in the Victorian age, an anti-imperialist, a reformer and pro Home Rule for Ireland was progressive indeed. Gladstone was a magnificent example of the head overcoming the heart. He also had the courage to pursue the convictions resulting from this.