Gladstone
‘Enough to kill any man’: the trials of serving Queen Victoria
Of all the Queen’s prime ministers, Gladstone suffered the most from her wilfulness, but while he opposed her policies he did much to popularise her monarchy
Political biographies to enjoy in lockdown
Here are ten political biographies, with a leavening of the classics, for those with time to kill in the present…
Britain über alles
David Cannadine was a schoolboy in 1950s Birmingham, which was still recognisable as the city that Joseph Chamberlain had…
Swagger and squalor
This is a monumental but inevitably selective survey of all that occurred in Britain, for better or worse, in the…
… and an awesome beak
The Enigma of Kidson is a quintessentially Etonian book: narcissistic, complacent, a bit silly and ultimately beguiling. It is the…
Victorian prime ministers and the press
Lord Palmerston is remembered today not for his foreign policy nor for his octogenarian philandering, but for his management of…
At last: a calm, definitive account of the Armenian genocide
The atrocities suffered by an estimated one million Armenians in 1915 have been largely ignored by historians and officially denied by the Turks. It’s a centenary we can’t afford to neglect, says Justin Marozzi
Clash of the titans
This is an odd book: interesting, informative, intelligent, but still decidedly odd. It is a history of the Victorian era…
Disraeli, by Douglas Hurd; The Great Rivalry, by Dick Leonard - review
Sam Leith finds shades of Jeffrey Archer and Boris Johnson in the 19th-century prime minister
