Kind of Blue

Kind of Blue

Author: Ken Clarke

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Published: 2016-10-06

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 1509837248

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Ken Clarke needs no introduction. One of the genuine 'Big Beasts' of the political scene, during his forty-six years as the Member of Parliament for Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire he has been at the very heart of government under three prime ministers. He is a political obsessive with a personal hinterland, as well known as a Tory Wet with Europhile views as for his love of cricket, Nottingham Forest Football Club and jazz. In Kind of Blue, Clarke charts his remarkable progress from working-class scholarship boy in Nottinghamshire to high political office and the upper echelons of both his party and of government. But Clarke is not a straightforward Conservative politician. His position on the left of the party often led Margaret Thatcher to question his true blue credentials and his passionate commitment to the European project has led many fellow Conservatives to regard him with suspicion – and cost him the leadership on no less than three occasions. Clarke has had a ringside seat in British politics for four decades and his trenchant observations and candid account of life both in and out of government will enthral readers of all political persuasions. Vivid, witty and forthright, and taking its title not only from his politics but from his beloved Miles Davis, Kind of Blue is political memoir at its very best.


Studies on the Reception of Plato and Greek Political Thought in Victorian Britain

Studies on the Reception of Plato and Greek Political Thought in Victorian Britain

Author: Kyriakos Demetriou

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-04-14

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 1000950689

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This collection of essays focuses on the reception of Plato and Greek political thought in the work of some major (pre)Victorian classical scholars and expands on a remarkable range of hotly debated issues on the interpretation of Greek antiquity. The central figure in this volume is the radical philosopher, utilitarian, and Platonist George Grote, whose works on the history of Greece and Plato moved away from traditional models of classical interpretation. His works and their background are critically explored in light of his philosophical commitment and political radicalism. Article IV brings to light a forgotten manuscript by Grote, "On the Character of Socrates," produced in the 1820s. Grote sought to counter the current literature on ancient Greece and its predominant motifs, which is here examined in its own right along with an independent study on Bishop Connop Thirlwall's influential History of Greece. The second half of this volume is devoted to analyzing important aspects of the revival of Platonic studies in the ideological and discursive context of early and middle Victorian times. This collection of essays presents comprehensive and illuminating contextual analyses of nineteenth-century works on classical reception, providing simultaneously a rich bibliographic guide to further research.


Sidgwick's Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy

Sidgwick's Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy

Author: J. B. Schneewind

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 1977-11-17

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 0191519820

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Henry Sedgewick's The Methods of Ethics challenges comparison, as no other work in moral philosophy, with Aristotle's Ethics in the depth of its understanding of practical rationality, and in its architectural coherence it rivals the work of Kant. In this historical, rather than critical study, Professor Schneewind shows how Sidgewick's arguments and conclusions represent rational developments of the work of Sidgewick's predecessors, and brings out the nature and structure of the reasoning underlying his position.


The Newton Papers

The Newton Papers

Author: Sarah Dry

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014-04-11

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0199951055

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When Isaac Newton died in 1727 without a will, he left behind a wealth of papers that, when examined, gave his followers and his family a deep sense of unease. Some of what they contained was wildly heretical and alchemically obsessed, hinting at a Newton altogether stranger and less palatable than the one enshrined in Westminster Abbey as the paragon of English rationality. These manuscripts had the potential to undermine not merely Newton's reputation, but that of the scientific method he embodied. They were immediately suppressed as "unfit to be printed," and, aside from brief, troubling glimpses spread across centuries, the papers would remain hidden from sight for more than seven generations. In The Newton Papers, Sarah Dry illuminates the tangled history of these private writings over the course of nearly three hundred years, from the long span of Newton's own life into the present day. The writings, on subjects ranging from secret alchemical formulas to impassioned rejections of the Holy Trinity, would eventually come to light as they moved through the hands of relatives, collectors, and scholars. The story of their disappearance, dispersal, and rediscovery is populated by a diverse cast of characters who pursued and possessed the papers, from economist John Maynard Keynes to controversial Jewish Biblical scholar Abraham Yahuda. Dry's captivating narrative moves between these varied personalities, depicting how, as they chased the image of Newton through the thickets of his various obsessions, these men became obsessed themselves with the allure of defining the "true" Newton. Dry skillfully accounts for the ways with which Newton's pursuers have approached his papers over centuries. Ultimately, The Newton Papers shows how Newton has been made and re-made throughout history by those seeking to reconcile the cosmic contradictions of an extraordinarily complex man.


Oxford Jackson

Oxford Jackson

Author: William Whyte

Publisher: Clarendon Press

Published: 2006-08-31

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 0191516333

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In the late nineteenth century one man changed Oxford forever. T. G. Jackson built the Examination Schools, the Bridge of Sighs, worked at a dozen colleges, and restored a score of other Oxford icons. He also built for many of the major public schools, for the University of Cambridge, and at the Inns of Court. A friend of William Morris, he was a pioneering member of the arts and crafts moment. A distinguished historian, he also restored dozens of houses and churches - and ensured the survival of Winchester Cathedral. As an architectural theorist he was a leader of the generation that rejected the Gothic Revival and sought to develop a new and modern style of building. Drawing on extensive archival work, and illustrated with a hundred images, this is the first in-depth analysis of Jackson's career ever written. It sheds light on a little-known architect and reveals that his buildings, his books, and his work as an arts and craftsman were not just important in their own right, they were also part of a wider social change. Jackson was the architect of choice for a particular group of people, for the 'intellectual aristocracy' of late Victorian England. His buildings were a means by which they could articulate their identity and demonstrate their distinctiveness. They reformed the universities and the schools whilst he refashioned their image. Essential reading for anyone interested in Victorian architecture and nineteenth-century society, this book will also be of interest to all those who know and love Oxford or Cambridge.


Historians and the Church of England

Historians and the Church of England

Author: James Kirby

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 019876815X

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In the Victorian and Edwardian era, history was one of the most prized forms of cultural and intellectual activity: it was, quite simply, the lens through which most of the educated population understood human society. Historians and the Church of England uncovers for the first time the extent to which this historical understanding was conditioned by religious ideas and institutions. Rejecting the traditional chronology of intellectual secularization, itcontends that the Church of England in particular remained an active force in the development of scholarship, leaving a deep impression on history just as it was becoming a modern discipline. It thereforechallenges readers to revise their understanding of the history of both historiography and religion in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.