Eminent Victorians
by Lytton Strachey
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Book Summary Information
Author: Lytton StracheyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-07-28
ISBN: 1438500041
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Book Jungle
Book Reviews of Eminent Victorians
Book Review: An eminent historian on the Victorians
Summary: 5 Stars
I read this in my freshman year of college, and it was a pleasure to go back to it again. Here are four portraits of leading figures of Victorian England: Cardinal Henry Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Thomas Arnold, and General Charles Gordon. Manning was the leader of England's Catholics, Nightingale pretty much created the nursing profession, Arnold was the headmaster of Rugby and helped create the British public schools, and Gordon was, ultimately, a tragic figure, the victim of anti-colonial Muslim armies in Sudan. All were respectable, talented, formidable people - yet they were all stuffy and priggish, able to see things only from the point of view of dignified leaders of the United Kingdom. Strachey's brilliant portraits of them serve as a criticism of British attitudes and approaches.
Strachey had a very interesting approach to history - he tried to really get inside the heads of his subjects, to fully understand their motives and tendencies. I suppose he could be accused of speculating a little too much, but any good reader should understand that there is some opinion mixed in with the facts. He writes so well, and with a very subtle wit too, that it is enjoyable even when he refers to things that a contemporary reader would have little knowledge of. Here is an example: "Arnold started, in 1831, a weekly newspaper, The Englishman's Register. The paper was not a success, in spite of the fact that it set out to improve its reader morally and that it preserved, in every article, an avowedly Christian tone."
The General Gordon section was as exciting a history piece as I have ever read, and there are resonances for today's world political situation. Gordon successfully led armies in China against a rebellion led by Hong Siu-tsuen, a former teacher who had religious visions and became the Tien Wang (the "celestial king"), the leader of a movement. He and his followers took over Nanking, and found themselves at odds with both the British and Chinese governments. Ultimately they were defeated. "Chinese Gordon" later became Governor-General of the Sudan. At a later point (around 1875 maybe? - Strachey is not a big one for providing dates), a rebellion grew in the Sudan, also centered around a spiritual leader, this one named Mahommed Ahmed, a young man who gathered some followers, then announced that Allah had revealed to him that he was the "mahdi", or the next great prophet. His movement grew and became the Mahdi Army, a name that is now used by a different group in Iraq. The Sudanians revolted against their Egyptian rulers and their English backers. The British government sent Gordon to Khartoum to lead an evacuation of the area. However, once he arrived, the bull-headed and contentious Gordon showed no intentions of giving in to the rebels, and soon he was surrounded and besieged. An expeditionary force was organized and sent to Khartoum, after much delay - there was a lot of consternation in London that Gordon had decided to rewrite the policy on his own - but arrived too late. Khartoum fell into the Ahmed's hands, and Gordon was killed. A few years later, the British recaptured the area, but that story is not told here.
Strachey was the gay son of a former viceroy of India, and part of the celebrated Bloomsbury group. He is regarded as a groundbreaking historian who emphasized psychological insight and paired it with an irreverent wit. He was a superb historical writer, and this book proves it.
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