It is somewhat unfortunate that so many of our ideas about the Industrial Revolution and business come from the novels of Charles Dickens, a man who was undoubtedly a literary genius but also one who did not really approve of people working, which sits ill with his own well known workaholism.
Dickens's novel of the Industrial Revolution, Hard Times, has much to recommend it, but it does not give as true and real a picture as Mrs Gaskell's...
For those readers who will be in or around London on February 1: Robin Harris, author of the monumental new history of the Conservative Party, will be addressing the Bruges Group that evening on the subject of
The Political Class and their Support for the EU.
He ought to know. The other speaker will be Simon Heffer, journalist, polemicist and historian. Tickets: £10 to be paid at the door but that will include drinks afterwar...
Tory Historian's attention was called to a fascinating source for the study of conservative history. The Duke University Press has set up a site on which you can read Thomas Carlyle's letters on line. The collection is excellently catalogued and the site is easy to navigate. One almost wishes that one was a student of Carlyle. However, this has also reminded TH of the need to visit Carlyle's house in Chelsea. A report from there will foll...
It is some time since this site has noted significant dates and it is time to do so again. Yesterday was the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, which ended the War of Spanish Succession and gave Gibraltar and Minorca to Britain. As we know, Gibraltar is still British and its population has no desire to be anything else. Next year we shall all be celebrating the 300th anniversary.
Today, on the other hand is an...
Like everyone else, Tory Historian has had to put up with many misquotes and near-guesses of what Edmund Burke said about a number of things. It was, therefore, an enormous pleasure for TH to read the following accurate quotation from Burke's Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents:
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
Edmund Burke's...
Robin Harris's history of the Conservative Party is hefty but so well written that it is a pleasure to it. Once finished, there will be a longish piece on it. In the meantime, I was interested to find a quote in the Introduction from the great conservative thinker, Michael Oakeshott.
To be conservative ... is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the...
With the Diamond Jubilee rapidly approaching, Peter Whittle, Director of the New Culture Forum put up an excerpt from his recent book, Monarchy Matters. Here are a few paragraphs:
The monarchy is the embodiment of our history. That history is now woefully under-taught in our state school system (one recent poll showed that a large number of children were under the impression that Churchill was a nodding toy dog in a TV advertisement). Too much of our educational establishment has instead concentrated on forms of social engineering....
Tory Historian came across a potentially very interesting new blog, called 80 Libraries: The Quest. The idea, it would appear is to blog about eight libraries around the world. (One wonders whether Jules Verne ever realized the sheer brilliance of his title.)
It is, in itself, a fascinating idea. Tory Historian wishes the blogger well and will be watching future postings. In addition, the first library is one TH is very fond of, the London Library. The descriptions and pictures are delightful and well worth reading and looking...
Today is the birthday of one of the greatest of the conservative political thinkers in the Anglosphere, though contrary to what some ignorant people maintain, Edmund Burke was a Whig not a Tory. His ideas on freedom, English enlightened virtues and the role of the state remain as valid and important as when they were first voiced. (Though, to be fair, one must deplore his role in the politically motivated and entirely dishonourable attempt...
The two great Russian questions are: Who is at fault and What is to be done.
Кто виноват? is a novel by Alexander Herzen. Based on various personal experiences, it is his only foray into the writing of fiction (one has to assume that his various autobiographical volumes are more or less accurate) and not his best work. However, it is considerably better than Что делать? by Nikolay Chernyshevsky, a most appallingly boring novel with no fewer than four dreams by the heroine Vera Pavlovna and one that Dostyevsky...
Tory Historian wrote some while ago about visiting Dickens Museum on a Boxing Day and about George Orwell's essay about the great writer. That led to a very interesting discussion. However, yesterday's London Evening Standard had an item about the museum, wondering why it will be shut for refurbishment for most of the year, which just happens to be one dedicated to Charles Dickens.
The counter-argument was worthy of consideration:
Dr Florian Schweitzer, director of the Charles Dickens Museum, apologised to those upset about...
... than a collection of photographs from the early twentieth century. An article in the Daily Mail with some very fine examples of early colour photographs from the collection of the millionaire Albert Kahn (who died in 1940) led Tory Historian to the actual website, which gives an account of M. Kahn's biography, interest in photography and the subsequent fate of the photographs. The BBC is doing something very useful by publishing...
