Generally regarded as one of the fathers of British politics, Benjamin Disraeli remains today one of the most influential Prime Ministers in history. Though fiercely conservative (in fact, centrally involved in the creation of the modern Conservative Party), much of his work in international affairs is still admired by people of all political persuasions. Unlike most politicians of today, Disraeli had much of interest to say on the subject of philosophy, and was very outspoken in his views on mankind and life itself. He remains a much quoted figure today. This book brings together some of Disraeli’s most interesting thoughts on a number of different topics.
Lauded as a “great Jew,” excoriated by antisemites, and one of Britain’s most renowned prime ministers, Benjamin Disraeli has been widely celebrated for his role in Jewish history. But is the perception of him as a Jewish hero accurate? In what ways did he contribute to Jewish causes? In this groundbreaking, lucid investigation of Disraeli’s life and accomplishments, David Cesarani draws a new portrait of one of Europe’s leading nineteenth-century statesmen, a complicated, driven, opportunistic man. While acknowledging that Disraeli never denied his Jewish lineage, boasted of Jewish achievements, and argued for Jewish civil rights while serving as MP, Cesarani challenges the assumption that Disraeli truly cared about Jewish issues. Instead, his driving personal ambition required him to confront his Jewishness at the same time as he acted opportunistically. By creating a myth of aristocratic Jewish origins for himself, and by arguing that Jews were a superior race, Disraeli boosted his own career but also contributed to the consolidation of some of the most fundamental stereotypes of modern antisemitism.
Reprint of the rare first edition. The Vindication is the fullest statement of the great prime minister's philosophy. According to Disraeli [1804-1881], the Whigs were devoted to the centralization of power in Westminster and the self-perpetuation of their party. As the party of the propertied classes the Tories resisted the Whigs by preserving the traditional system in which the landowners governed responsibly, relieved the distress of the poor and enabled men of intellect, like himself, to serve the public by adapting Tory values to modern needs.
Benjamin Disraeli is primarily remembered as a two-time Prime Minister, founder of modern British Conservatism, and popular novelist. However, in the course of a few fateful years, he had a decisive influence on the history of the countries of the Balkan peninsula.Like all British Prime Ministers in this period, Disraeli was forced to confront the Eastern Question: what to do about the political future of the Balkans and the Levant, as the Ottoman Empire began to implode. During the 'Eastern Crisis' of 1875 to 1878, Disraeli played a key role, in the end imposing his will on the rest of Europe at the Congress of Berlin.It is a commonplace in biographies of Disraeli that his attitude to the East and the Eastern Question is essential for understanding his complex persona and the most crucial period of his career, yet until now this topic has not been researched in detail. Disraeli and the Eastern Question now fills this gap, providing the first complete reconstruction of Disraeli's attitudes towards the East and the Eastern Question as a whole, from his early youth onwards, and using a wide range ofprimary sources, from Disraeli's private papers, correspondence, and novels, the manuscript collections of Queen Victoria and the Prime Minister's closest associates, to the minutes of Parliamentary debates and the official correspondence of the Foreign Office, as well as Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, andAlbanian documents. Blending a biographical approach with the history of ideas, Milos Kovic analyses Disraeli's role in the Eastern Crisis, at the Congress of Berlin, and after, to provide a full intellectual biography of his attitudes to the Eastern Question and how these affected the history of international relations in the late nineteenth century.
This book contains the second volume of Benjamin Disraeli’s 1847 novel, “Tancred - Or, The New Crusade”. It was the last in his trilogy of political novels, preceded by “Sybil; or, The Two Nations” (1845) and “Coningsby; or, The New Generation” (1844). The plot revolves around the role of the Church of England in rejuvenating Britain’s waning spirituality. This book is highly recommended for fans of political fiction, and is not to be missed by collectors of Disraeli’s work. Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) was a British politician and author, who served as Prime Minister on two separate occasions. He played a central role in the creation of the modern Conservative Party, defining its policies and its broad outreach. Many vintage texts such as this are becoming increasingly rare and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now, in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.
After surveying England's evolving theories of representative politics and individual and collective secretive practices, Pionke traces the intersection of democracy and secrecy through a series of case histories. Using works by Thomas Carlyle, Wilkie Colins, Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli, John Henry Newman, and others, along with periodicals, histoires, and parliamentary documents of the period, he shows the rhetorical prominence of groups such as the Freemasons, the Thugs, the Carbonari, the Fenians, and the Jesuits in Victorian democratic discourse. --book cover.
In The Moral Imagination, Gertrude Himmelfarb, one of America's most distinguished intellectual historians, explores the minds and lives of some of the most brilliant and provocative thinkers of modern times. In their distinctive ways, she argues, they exemplify what Burke two centuries ago and Trilling most recently have called the "moral imagination." Himmelfarb describes how each of these thinkers, coming from different traditions, responding to different concerns, and writing in different genres, shared a moral passion that permeated their work. It is this passion that makes their reflections--on politics and literature, religion and society, marriage and sex--sometimes unpredictable, often controversial, always exciting, and as illuminating and pertinent today as they were then. The second edition includes a revised introduction and three new essays on Adam Smith, Lord Acton, and Alfred Marshall.
