Politics, Religion and Love: The Story of H.H. Asquith, Venetia Stanley and Edwin Montagu, Based on the Life and Letters of Edwin Samuel Montagu (Hardcover)

~ Naomi Levine (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Edwin Montagu, a Jewish member of British Liberal prime minister Herbert Henry Asquith's cabinet, fell madly in love with aristocratic Venetia Stanley, whom the married Asquith was also passionately wooing. The sexually liberated, politically knowledgeable Stanley chose Montagu; Levine cites their 1915 marriage as a key factor in lovelorn Asquith's decision to form a wartime coalition government with members of the Tory party rather than pursue a parliamentary struggle. In the years following the wedding, Asquith is portrayed as an anti-Semite, Montagu as so assimilated he almost singlehandedly blunted the effectiveness of the 1917 Balfour Declaration pledging British support for a Jewish state in Palestine, and Stanley as an indifferent wife who had an open liaison with Lord Beaverbrook and a daughter by yet another man. Levine, senior vice-president of New York University, has written an engrossing history that intertwines political chicanery, romantic fireworks and an expose of British anti-Semitism. Photos.

Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

This is the story of three fascinating and strong-willed individuals: H.H. Asquith, Prime Minister of England; his friend and confidant, Edwin Samuel Montagu, a Jewish member of the Cabinet, and also Secretary of State for India; and the third, the sexually liberated Venetia Stanley, a brilliant adnd politically sophisticated woman and a member of one of England's oldest aristocratic families.

This book is also a recital of racism and anti-semitism in England in the early century - not merely among the uneducated or the lunatic fringe of the Tory Party, but amoing the well-educated, the stars of Oxford and Cambridge, and the leaders of the Liberal Party as well. It demonstrates that even so educated and affluent a man as Montagu, almost totally assimilated, who spent a life time trying to escape his Judaism, who married a woman who had nothing but scorn for all religions - was not immune from the pain and humiliation of anti-semitism.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 843 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press; illustrated edition edition (September 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814750575
• ISBN-13: 978-0814750575
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.3 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,686,130 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)