Disraeli · August 2026
British television show “Number 10” got personal with Disraeli and Gladstone
In a way that American TV rarely does, this 1983 series plumbed the psychological depths of statesmen as character studies
August 23, 2026
Posts
Disraeli · July 2026
Review: The Disraeli myth is consequential but endangered, a new book shows
The prime minister managed to write the single most influential novel in British political history. So why do so few remember him?
July 12, 2026
Wilson · June 2026
Woodrow Wilson, Ezra Pound and an homage to James Joyce’s Ulysses
Ezra Pound ruminated on the relationship between literary writing and political writing. Having a Joyce sooner could have spared us a Wilson, he said.
June 17, 2026
Wilson · June 2026
Review: Angel Down, To the Lighthouse and the communicative difficulties of World War I
These two Great War stories are very different, but they share a harrowing interiority.
June 7, 2026
Disraeli · May 2026
Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s ideational evolution
He pulls Disraeli left, then Disraeli pulls him right.
May 6, 2026
Gladstone · April 2026
I Did Not Mean It: Gladstone, Homer and a Second Chance at Providence
A 1,600-page study of Homer becomes a window into the statesman's private wrestling with fate, free will and progress.
April 14, 2026