The Mind of Gladstone: Religion, Homer, and Politics [Hardcover]

David W. Bebbington (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0199267650 | ISBN-13: 978-0199267651 | Publication Date: May 20, 2004

William Ewart Gladstone, four times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom under Queen Victoria, was not only the most celebrated British statesman of his day but also a respected theologian and a dedicated scholar of the ancient Greek poet Homer. By examining the development of his ideas, this book reveals that his political thought as leader of the Liberal party intertwined with his religion and classical scholarship.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[A] remarkable book that effectively reveals both the complexity and unity of what came to be known as Gladstonian Liberalism....This stimulating and thought-provoking book will undoubtedly become essential reading not only for historians of Gladstone and his politics, but for anyone interested in late Victorian thought. Essential."--CHOICE

About the Author

David Bebbington is a Professor of History, University of Stirling.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 20, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199267650
• ISBN-13: 978-0199267651
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,030,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a mind!, August 20, 2004

By 

Ralph Blumenau (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Mind of Gladstone: Religion, Homer, and Politics (Hardcover)

And what a mind it was! Gladstone was undoubtedly the most deep-thinking and intellectual prime minister Great Britain has ever had. He took as much trouble corresponding with the leading minds of his time (both in England and abroad) as he took with his weekly sermons to his surely often uncomprehending household. He wrestled, often successfully, to bring apparently opposed ideas into a kind of Hegelian synthesis (though Hegel was not one of the authors in his vast library). He was a voracious reader and engaged deeply with everything he read, as the annotations in his books and the memoranda he wrote for himself bear witness. David Bebbington must have read nearly as much, and with as much attention to detail, as Gladstone had done by the time he was Bebbingtopn's relatively young age. He has read deeply not only in Gladstone's own voluminous writings but in practically everything of note that has ever been written about the statesman.

Readers who are acquainted only with Gladstone's political activities will know how much these were affected by his religious beliefs, and they will alos have formed an idea of Gladstone's Liberalism. In this book we can, firstly, trace in detail the progress of Gladstone's religious thought, culminating in due course in the remarkable combination of an intense commitment to High Anglicanism and an equally intense commitment to secure equal political rights to those outside the Church of England.

In his magisterial last chapter, Bebbington shows the architecture of Gladstone's Liberalism: a seamless progression from his moral commitment to the individual to an equally morally-based commitment to the family, the local community, the nation, the international community and to humanity itself.

What is perhaps least familiar to those who know only of Gladstone's religion and politics is how these were integrated not only with each other, but with his study of the Greek classics and of Aristotle and Homer in particular. That he should have let Aristotle shape so much of his political outlook is, once one comes to think about it, not unexpected. However, his debt to Homer - or rather to what he read into Homer - is rather more surprising, distinctly peculiar and even, at least to this reader, positively dotty. Not only did he see in Homer a prototype of his own social and political vision, but this devout Christian was convinced that his God had shown Himself to Homer and his contemporaries in a "primitive revelation".

But in general, notwithstanding this quirky aspect of Gladstone, my long-standing admiration for him has been further enhanced by Bebbington's splendid book. It is not an easy read - partly because Gladstone's style was even more complicated than his thought, and partly because Bebbington occasionally assumes a knowledge which many readers will not have. But then you can always look up what exactly the filioque clause was.