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DISRAELI AND ENGLAND

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2001

J . P. PARRY
J . P. PARRY
Affiliation:
Pembroke College, Cambridge
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Abstract

This article questions the dominant historiographical approaches to understanding the career of Benjamin Disraeli, which view him either as more opportunistic than most of his political contemporaries or as more ‘continental’ in his outlook. It emphasizes his determination to understand English history and values, and argues that a desire to defend and realize his conception of England gave his career coherence. He saw himself as a foe of dangerous cosmopolitan ideas that were damaging the national character and creating social disharmony. This allowed him to cast all his major political initiatives in a heroic, elitist yet restorative light. He conceived those initiatives as a response to the damage inflicted by the domestic and international crises of the 1830s and 1840s. Indeed it is arguable that as a result Disraeli's political strategy in later life was in some ways both quixotic and outdated.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , September 2000 , pp. 699 - 728
Copyright
© 2000 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

This article is an offshoot of work done by me in order to write the article ‘Benjamin Disraeli’ for the New dictionary of national biography (Oxford, forthcoming). The full entry is substantially longer and broader in scope. I am very grateful to the late Professor Colin Matthew for the original commission to write the entry and to him and Robert Faber of Oxford University Press for permission to publish this article as a by-product with a different perspective. Many thanks also to Dr Boyd Hilton and Dr Max Jones for helpful comments on a draft. All works cited below are by Disraeli unless stated otherwise.