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Disraeli and the Rise of a New Imperialism, by C. C. Eldridge; pp. viii + 116. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996, 7.95 paper, $45.00.
Historiographical problems cluster round the term imperialism as well as around the career of Benjamin Disraeli. In so far as it is ever possible to pinpoint the entry of a word into common usage, imperialism dates from the controversies about the Royal Titles Bill of 1876, which conferred the title Empress of India on Queen Victoria. Disraeli introduced the bill under some pressure from the Queen, but by no means against his inclinations. He was much attacked for importing a title that sounded un-English and he was suspected of harbouring far-reaching authoritarian designs. In the following years Disraeli's "forward" policies in the Balkans, South Africa, and Afghanistan were often called imperialist by their opponents, though their principal antagonist Gladstone preferred to call them "Beaconsfieldism."
C. C. Eldridge, whose book England's Mission: The Imperial Idea in theAge of Gladstone and Disraeli (1973) is well known, brings together the concept and the personality in a succinct survey, with a selection of relevant documents. Present-day study of Disraeli revolves round the contrast between his status as an icon in the Conservative pantheon, the Disraeli myth, and his early raffish lifestyle as a literary and political figure unashamedly on the make. There was something postmodern about Disraeli as a politician; he would have been at home in the...