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Title: The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy by David Cannadine ISBN: 0-375-70368-3 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 07 September, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.22 (9 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent, detailed history of decline of aristocracy
Comment: David Cannadine is probably the leading historian of the British aristocracy and landed gentry. The readers of this book will fall into two classes (1) serious historians of the period, and (2) readers of English fiction from Trollope to Waugh who would like to know more about the aristocracy. The latter may find parts of this book heavy going. Cannadine is concerned with the history of a class, and individuals are discussed to illustrate his points. Additionally, a working knowledge of British political history of the period covered (1870-post WWII) is presumed.
Having said that, I found the book well written and thoroughly researched. Cannadine's work is too complex to be reduced to a short summary, but basically the aristocracy found itself beset on all side from around 1880 onward. A prolonged agricultural depression lowered their incomes, and created political pressure to break up the big estates. The increase in the franchise and the end of pocket boroughs undercut their power in the House of Commons. This in turn led to the aristocracy being abandoned even by the Tory party, which realized where the votes were. Ever increasing estate taxes (especially during and after World War II) approached confiscatory levels, requiring families to sell off their land. And many aristocrats found themselves completely unable to cope with those changes. Those who could cope did so largely by breaking the mold of the landed aristocracy of tradition.
Anyone looking for a "Brideshead Revisted" view of the aristocracy will be disappointed. But anyone who wants to know the pressures on the real-life equivalents of the characters of Waugh or Trollope will be greatly informed by this book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Whatever happened to Brideshead?
Comment: How is it that the owners of Britain's stately homes, who once lived magnificently, now are reduced to admitting paying visitors to keep their homes? While this question is never asked in David Cannadine's book, it is answered nonetheless.
Cannadine manages rather adroitly to discuss the long downward spiral of the British aristocracy amidst the backdrop of the history of Great Britain in the 19th and 20th century. There was a time in which these great magnates practically owned or controlled most of the wealth of the nation. What went wrong?
A better question might be, what went right. Although they managed to control politics, the military, the church and the civil service, the position of these guardians of Britannia was undermined by two things, the industrial revolution (which put up a new manufacturing class in opposition to the traditional nobles) and the rise of popular democracy. The first three reform bills drastically weakened the traditional hold of the aristocracy on the political process. During the 19th century it was a rare government that did not include several if not many representatives of the titled orders. By late the 20th century, the presence of one of these would seem somewhat quaint, a reminder of by gone days.
But it was not just the loss of political power that undermined the aristocracy, the immediate pre WWI years were a disaster of the first magnitude with Lloyd George and his "people's budget."
One wonders what would have happened to someone of Lloyd George's ilk in the 17th century. Doubless he would have shared the same fate as Bishop Laud.
WWI, WWII, and the rise of the Labor Party really were the final nails in the coffin of the British Aristocracy and the once lords of the realm are now reduced to lending their names to directorships (some of doubtful legitimacy), opening their homes to tourists, and even worse turning their backs on the whole of what it meant to be noble as the family fortunes and the roof of the family manse continue to erode away.
Cannadine handles all of this rather well bolstering each of his claims brilliantly. If one wants to know how the British Aristocracy went from being the rulers of the realm to one of its tourist attractions they should read this book.
Rating: 4
Summary: Going, going, gone......
Comment: British aristocrats have been common staples in TV shows, films, and even romance novels; but this was the first time I have seen them in a historical and academic light. A colleague of mine recommended me this book and I must say that David Cannadine did not disappoint. He meticulously takes readers to the aristocracy at its zenith; to its responses to the varoius political, economic, and social changes; and finally demise as a force to be reckoned with.
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Title: The Rise and Fall of Class in Britain by David Cannadine ISBN: 0231096674 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $18.50 |
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Title: Aspects of Aristocracy: Grandeur and Decline in Modern Britain by David Cannadine ISBN: 0140249532 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Trials of Oscar Wilde by H. Montgomery Hyde ISBN: 048620216X Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 June, 1973 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde by Peter Raby ISBN: 0521479878 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 16 October, 1997 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: De Profundis and Other Writings (Penguin Classics) by Oscar Wilde, Hesketh Pearson ISBN: 014043089X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1976 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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