Review by Choice Review
As a politician and leader within the Liberal Party, Herbert Gladstone never escaped his father's shadow. Brown (emer., history, Queen's Univ. Belfast) believes that this was intentional: to the son, William Gladstone was an ideal that should not be surpassed. This fidelity crimped Herbert Gladstone's ambitions and rendered him a relic in his own time. Solid and adequate but at times self-effacing, the younger Gladstone made his mark in Parliament, the cabinet, and as the governor-general in South Africa; however, these elevations appeared to rest more on confidence in pedigree than political maneuvering. In a career marked by both flashes of insight and lapses of judgment, Herbert Gladstone made the effort to carry the legacy of his father and Victorian ideals into a century that had small use for either. Party leaders such as Herbert Henry Asquith and David Lloyd George outmatched Gladstone in personality, demonstrated superior political acuity, and thereby defined Liberal Party positions through the Great War, relegating the Gladstone heir to a reactive role. Brown presents well a political life and its role in the events that ultimately allowed the Laborites to eclipse the Liberals in their traditional constituencies. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. --Steven L Smith, California State University, Fullerton
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
