Gladstone: God and Politics

(Hardback)

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Description

This important new single-volume study of W. E. Gladstone offers a readily accessible account of one of the most important and consequential political careers in modern British and Irish history. It is a story of how a statesman of almost superhuman energy and forcefulness of character strove to realise God's purposes, as he saw them, in the twisting and slippery paths of public service. Striving to realise God's purposes is the theme at the centre of this reading of Gladstone's life and career. For too long his intense religious faith has been exiled to the margins of the story, denied crucial explanatory power. Richard Shannon puts this right.

Reviews

"Shannon has indeed produced an interpretation of Gladstone that must be reckoned with." -Joseph S. Meisel, Victorian Studies, Vol. 51, 2009
'Richard Shannon ... has sharpened his controversial views' Daily Telegraph, November 2007
'This is a detailed, narrative biography ... [the] book gives a survey of Gladstone's life, which is perhaps rather different from "traditional" interpretations of it' BBC History Magazine, December 2007
"One comes away from this richly documented book with a sense that this was indeed a Victorian Titan." Reviewed by Michael Wheeler in Church Times, 2008
"This new book, like its predecessors, is elegantly written and enriched by succinct quotations from a very wide range of primary sourcesm which reflect the extensive research undertaken by its author. Shannon cleverly mixes the personal with the political aspects of Gladstone's career and provides a brisk and well-informed narrative of events." Reviewed by Roland Quinault in History Today, 2008
"Professor Shannon knows his way thoroughly... [O]ne of the strengths of Shannon's book is that he bases it so closely on these original sources. He has also taken in a great deal about the Gladstones' family circumstances, and has a scattering of shrewd eyewitness accounts of how the great man appeared on public and private occasions, culled from a lifetime's reading in biographies and memoirs. He writes sensibly about Gladstone's rescue work among streetwalkers and courtesans, and appreciates his enormous difficulties with the Queen." Reviewed by M.R.D. Foot in Times Literary Supplement, 2008
'...massively researched and pithily written...' Journal of Liberal History, 61, Winter 2008-09 -- Michael Ledger-Lomas
"this book is a major piece of historical revisionism and it most certainly deserves to be added ti the academic reading list" 9 February 2009 -- Jane Ridley * Spectator, The *

Author Bio

Richard Shannon is Emeritus Professor of Modern History at University of Wales Swansea, UK, is the author of a brilliant two-volume study of Gladstone.