Lessons in massacre; or, The conduct of the Turkish government in and about Bulgaria since May, 1876

by William Ewart Gladstone

About the Book

English poetry begins with Anglo-Saxon poetry such as the hymn on the creation, which Bede attributes to Cædmon (658–680AD). William Shakespeare was the stand out poet of the Elizabethan period, while Milton was considered the greatest poet of Jacobean and Caroline pe5riod (1603-1670). The Romantic movement was very big, proiducing such greats as William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Keats. The major Victorian poets were John Clare, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Matthew Arnold and Gerard Manley Hopkins. James Macpherson was the first Scottish poet to gain an international reputation, while Robert Burns is regarded as the national poet of Scotland. The most important figure of Scottish Romanticism, Walter Scott, began as a poet. In Wales the works of the great hymn writers of the 18th and 19th centuries were the poets William Williams Pantycelyn and Ann Griffiths. In the early 20th century there was a Welsh renaissance, with poets like T. H. Parry-Williams and D. Gwenallt Jones and T. Gwynn Jones.

88 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2008

About the author

One of the most prominent figures in nineteenth century British politics. Known as G.O.M, which stood for 'Grand Old Man' (although his rival Benjamin Disraeli joked that it was actually 'God's Only Mistake')

William Ewart Gladstone served four times as Liberal Prime Minister (1868 - 1874, 1880 - 1885, 1886 and 1892 - 1894). As such, he dominated the latter half of the century.

His hobbies included reforming prostitutes, felling trees and insulting Benjamin Disraeli. Despite a mutual dislike between Gladstone and Queen Victoria, he was one of the most successful politicians of his day.

His rule was dominated by the Irish Question, but his reforms were far-reaching and addressed a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues.

Reviews

[Atanas Dimitrov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where in his previous pamphlet on the Question of the East Gladstone employed arguments using a still somewhat moderate and collected language, in Lessons in Massacre he doesn't hold back. His disgust and outrage at the Super Powers - and again, the UK and Ottoman governments in particular - this time around hit as hard as a hammer.

He resorts to the unquestionable strength of the well established and profoundly used method of presenting an argument in a modernist factually driven society: the method of the empirical evidence. Gladstone lists 17 points that should normally instill utter, true and all-consuming outrage at the injustices, brutalities and immoralities displayed by the parties he so vehemently criticises, and then proceeds to bring irrefutable evidence to support all his claims.

The text stings its targets like a swarm of bees, burns like a furnace and hits hard. Really hard.

But alas those hits come upon the impenetrable brick wall of globalism and the politics of self-interest, as history would later prove.

Nevertheless Lessons in Massacre and its preceding text Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East remain bright examples of fiery political critiques, disturbing historic documentations, and for a selection of readers a prime and painful juxtaposition between what politics looked like back in the day, and the deranged abomination they have become now in the face of globalism and the rise of technologies of mass communication.