Benjamin Disraeli

Very Interesting People #8

by Jonathan Parry

Definitive, concise, and very interesting...From William Shakespeare to Winston Churchill, the Very Interesting People series provides authoritative bite-sized biographies of Britain's most fascinating historical figures - people whose influence and importance have stood the test of time.Each book in the series is based upon the biographical entry from the world-famous Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

159 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 23, 2007

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was torture. 137 pages shouldn't take so long, but I spent about half my reading time fighting myself on whether I should keep reading this because how hard can it be because it's only 137 pages long. Torture. I went from not really knowing anything about Benjamin Disraeli to not knowing much about Disraeli and not liking him. What I did learn about Benjamin Disraeli (later, Lord Beaconsfield), I learned from looking up some Disraeli podcasts and they helped me elucidate what the pants was happening. The only way to make sense of this book is to already have a clear idea of Victorian politics and the life of Disraeli. Reading this, it seems like Disraeli was just dropped from the sky into increasingly prominent positions in Parliament. "Despite Liberal weaknesses in the beginning of 1874 there was little reason to expect a return to power. In fact, Disraeli was prime minister was again before the beginning of the session." How did that happen? I'm still so confused about why this Jewish son of a bookseller was a Corn Law-opposing Conservative. Like, he joined Parliament to avoid debtors' prison and then his friends lent him a million-pounds-in-today's-money to get Hughenden because it was embarrassing not to own a country house. The podcasts say he was a good orator but that's not reflected here. This romantic, forehead curl situation seems obnoxious. Eventually, he dies. Don't read this book.

Listening to multiple podcasts about Benjamin Disraeli, I found the radio play of the 1930 Disraeli biopic that led me to a delightful review of the 1930 biopic on a podcast called The Screen Test of Time where they review all Academy Award nominees from 1929 until the present day. Listen to that instead of reading this book.

[Warren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess it does what it says on the box, however this little book might be the driest hundred-odd pages I've read since giving up on Lawrence James a little while ago. Disraeli and mid-19th Century are intrinsically entwined, but Parry fails to extract the former from an excruciation of Byzantine detail concerning the latter. In just 137 pages, justice is done to neither.

[Emilija · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an alright overview on Disraeli. It's a decent series by Oxford University Press, but that being said, it doesn't feel researched well, with only a few historians referenced (ie. Monypenny and Buckle, Blake, Derby) and at points does come across quite negatively.

[SheMac · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just not for me. I think these VIP books assume a familiarity with British history and politics that I don't have. It was a bit of a struggle to get through this 136-page book. Still I learned a little bit about Disraeli, the man and the politician.