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S'està carregant… Who's Who in Late Hanoverian Britain: 1789 To 1837 (1987)de Geoffrey Treasure
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This is part of an eight-volume series providing short biographies of men and women from Roman to Victorian times. Each entry places the subject in the context of their age and evokes what was distinctive and interesting about their personality and achievement. No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — S'està carregant… GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)941.070922History and Geography Europe British Isles Historical periods of British Isles 1714-1837 Period of House of HanoverLCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:
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Some things struck me:
*Napoleon and the French Revolution had the same fascination for the “best and brightest” of the time that Communism had in ours. However, they got over it, while we’re still saddled with cryptoMarxists.
*A surprising number of people committed suicide. I wonder if drug overdose has replaced the straight razor as the final solution to despair among the famous?
*There are no entrepreneurs; a few of the people mentioned had made some money “in trade”, but they’re here because of subsequent philanthropic, political or artistic activity. On the other hand, there are a number of people who started out in the lower classes – Wolfe Tone, William Cobbett, Robert Burns, John Clare, Thomas Telford, John Dalton, Sir Humphrey Davy – and achieved fame (or, in Tone’s case, infamy) through their talent.
*A number of engineers and inventors are included: Stephenson, Trevithick, McAdam, Rennie, Maudslay. It’s gratifying to see them recognized by historians, who sometimes seem to concentrate on politicians (there’s a famous American history text that does not mention Thomas Edison or the Wright Brothers but has several paragraphs on Joseph McCarthy).
The book does have some drawbacks. The entries are chronological by career: early politicians, later politicians, early poets, later poets, etc. This makes it difficult to look someone up - you can go to the index, of course, but since the book was not intended to be read as a history I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t have been alphabetical. I suppose the author was thinking of “parallel lives”; it might make sense to juxtapose the careers of William Pitt and Charles Fox this way, but it doesn’t work very well elsewhere. You are also expected to be familiar with British history; it’s assumed that you know what the Reform Bill was about and what the Corn Laws were. Nevertheless there’s plenty of interesting people in here and the format makes it easy to pick up and read a biography or two. I’m anxious to get the others in the series. ( )