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
Tagged: Gladstone
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
Gladstone · March 2026
Did Gladstone arrive in Corfu a conservative and leave a liberal?
Disraeli’s attempt to sideline Gladstone politically paradoxically catalyzed his shift to Liberalism.
March 15, 2026
Wilson · January 2026
An aside: Byron and Shelley’s influence on Wilson and Gladstone
Woodrow Wilson worried genius marries badly, because of Shelley’s example. He was thinking of himself. His wife replied sarcastically: “the poor helpless men of genius are not utterly unprotected.”
January 31, 2026
Gladstone · October 2025
Review: Disraeli’s Alroy prefigures modern Zionism. Did he see himself in the Messianic fantasy?
Disraeli dreamed in 1833 of reviving Israel, before “Zionism” was a word: “A single day, a single man, and we might be a nation.” Did he hope to be that single man?
October 16, 2025
Wilson · October 2025
An aside: Ellen Wilson and Benjamin Disraeli’s conflicting views of Balzac reveal much
“I feel inclined after this dose of Balzac to equal or exceed you in your contempt for the French,” Ellen Wilson wrote her husband in 1889. Later that contempt would have foreign policy implications.
October 13, 2025