Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #288236 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-08
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Synopsis
He was acknowledged to be a brilliant debater and parliamentarian, and is still England's first and only Jewish prime minister, but there was much more to Benjamin Disraeli than his career as a nineteenth-century politician. Dandy, novelist, social climber, he often behaved as if politics was merely a conduit to a more interesting life rather than an intellectual vocation. This new biography takes four areas of Disraeli's complex character and through them constructs an entirely new portrait of one of our most fascinating prime ministers. Exploring Disraeli's attitudes to society, the monarchy, his own sexuality and his innate political daring, William Kuhn rediscovers his irreverence and sheds new light on the man and his legacy. Drawing on primary sources and much original research, THE POLITICS OF PLEASURE seeks to restore the core characteristic of humanity to someone who has long been judged merely another eminent but worthy Victorian. It also explores the game of politics as Disraeli saw it -- the fun and pleasure of it, as a means of persuading the electorate to take an interest in a way that often seems lost today.

Customer Reviews

Refreshing and Intriguing
Normal historians: Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield, born 1804, died 1881. Conservative Prime Minister 1867 and 1874-1880. Repeal of Corn Laws, Second Reform Act, Suez, Berlin. Rival to William Gladstone.
This is the normal history of Disraeli we have come to expect; tomes of information detailing his legislation, his speeches, his intentions. Blake, Vincent, Feuchtwanger, Jenkins. History, rewritten but containing the same information.
But out of nowhere, far and away the best biography of Benjamin Disraeli written so far has surfaced. Kuhn's superbly written and fantastically researched book has taken Benjamin Disraeli out of the neglected shelves of libraries, dusted him down, and dressed him in his finest dandified outfit. Finally there is a reliable and easy to read book about the 'most modern of victorian men.'
Kuhn puts parliamentary dross and tedium in the rear seat in his book, and brings what makes a man human to the fore. Disraeli's relationships, both risque and devoted, are primarily dealt with. He is treated as a novelist first and a politician second. Kuhn explains and shows how Disraeli's books were autobiographical in nature in detail, and we learn that they were the autobiographies that never were. The book puts across a sense that Disraeli was not just a name and a date accompanied with a black and white etching, but he was a real man, with real strengths and weaknesses, with real feelings and real emotion. Some of the best parts of the book are the anecdotes that we could never know from normal historians, such as how he spoke in public, how he dressed, and who he loved.
This is a book for any historian, young or old. However, it could be read by almost anyone. It is a romance, it is a period drama, it is a comedy. In essence, it is the story of the young jewish convert who lived his life to the extremes, and eventually put all his limitations behind him to become the most important man in the British Empire.