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Winner:
Wolfson Prize for History 1999
James Stern Silver Pen Award
for Non-Fiction 1999.
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'This is a biography of quite unusual quality
and insight, tautly organised yet flowing easily, with years
of research behind it to reinforce its authority. While not
seeking to diminish either Gladstone or Disraeli, it restores
Salisbury to the commanding position he rightfully occupied
in Victorian politics'.
Prof. Peter Clarke, Sunday
Times
'Roberts' mastery of his sources, combined
with his ability to vary the tone and colour of his very long
narrative has resulted in both a fascinating political history
and an engaging character study. Roberts has ranged far and
wide over unpublished sources to give the most rounded portrait
possible of Salisbury. Roberts's Salisbury is a book worthy
to place besides John Morley's Gladstone and Robert Blake's
Disraeli'.
Mark Bostridge, Independent
on Sunday
'This is one to put on one's shelf alongside
Ehrman's Younger Pitt, Gash's volumes on Peel and Blake's
Disraeli .. Andrew Roberts's book has the balance, insight,
all-roundedness and intellectual elegance of Lord Salisbury
himself.'
AD Harvey, The Salisbury
Review
'Although constructed on a massive scale,
Roberts's book is so beautifully written that one would not
wish it a page shorter. It is unlikely ever to be superseded.'
Prof. Vernon Bogdanor,
Times Higher Education Supplement
'Salisbury deserves, and has found, a fine
biographer, who has left no stone unturned in his researches,
has written cogently and well about his subject, and provided
not just a history of Lord Salisbury, but one of the best
histories yet of Victorian Britain and her place in the world.'
Simon Heffer, Daily
Mail
'This is a superb biography of a largely
neglected prime minister. Scholarly and well written, it fills
a notable gap in Victorian historiography.'
Robert Blake, The Oldie
Books of the Year
'Mr Roberts confirms that he is the finest
living non-academic historian of Tories, and perhaps of British
politics in general, which should not be taken as suggesting
that the academic ones are better.'
Frank Johnson, Spectator
Book of the Year
'Salisbury: Victorian Titan is a great biography,
magisterially proportioned, and fit to take its place with
Gash on Peel and Blake on Disraeli, if not with Morley's Gladstone.
Moreover, although constructed on a massive scale, it is so
beautifully written that one would not want it a page shorter.
It is unlikely ever to be superseded.'
Prof. Vernon Bogdanor,
Times Higher Educational Supplement
'The biography of 1999 was undoubtedly Salisbury:
Victorian Titan by Andrew Roberts, a heavyweight treatment,
in great detail, of the shy, bearded ultra-conservative Prime
Minister who dominated the last decade of the 19th century.
Roberts does him full justice.'
Paul Johnson, Sunday
Telegraph Books of the Year
'A remarkable work in which great sweeps
of history are deftly handled. A titanic biography of truly
Victorian scale.'
Ben Pimlott, The Guardian
'Roberts succeeds triumphantly in his purpose,
which is to restore Salisbury to the centre of the political
stage. Roberts makes no secret of his sympathy for his subject,
and he writes a readable, fluent narrative. This is an affectionate,
admiring, detailed portrait of a neglected giant.'
Jane Ridley, The Spectator
'Roberts has done Salisbury proud. Based
on comprehensive research, this is an outstanding achievement:
fluent, weighty in the Victorian mode, sympathetic but not
uncritical, often hilarious. Seldom has such an important
study been such splendid entertainment.'
Dr Piers Brendon, Independent
'Roberts triumphantly retrieves Salisbury
from unmerited obscurity with a book which is as delightful
to read as it is informative.'
Dr Niall Ferguson, Mail
on Sunday
'Salisbury: Victorian Titan is a very fine
book by a learned and elegant writer who, at age thirty-six,
has already distinguished himself as an outstanding practioner
of the British art of non-academic history-writing.'
David Frum, The Weekly
Standard
'It's a terrific piece of biography; I really
enjoyed it.'
Jeremy Paxman, Start
The Week
'Andrew Roberts's Salisbury fills a most
remarkable gap in British historiography with a study that
is not only learned and comprehensive but startlingly well-written.'
Sir Michael Howard,
Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year
'Roberts does full justice to Salisbury's
massive personality: pessimistic, inscrutable, deeply ironic,
self-confident, brutally funny.'
Roy Foster, Evening
Standard
'In this majestic and readable biography,
Andrew Roberts brings Salisbury to life as the highly complex,
intelligent and depressive personality that he was - a devout,
perceptive, principled High Tory, endowed with his full share
of low cunning.'
David Goodall, The Tablet
'Andrew Roberts's Salisbury is an
incomparable vade-mecum to the Conservative state of being,
with all that sense of pace, drama and paradox which distinguishes
a first-rate biography.'
Jonathan Keates, Spectator
Books of the Year
'Andrew Roberts's sparkling and authoritive
biography of the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury provides the key
to the understanding of some of the Tory party's present problems
over foreign policy.'
Michael Pinto-Duschinsky,
The Times
'Excellent'
Conrad Black, Sunday
Telegraph Books of the Year
'Suberb'
Max Hastings, Sunday
Telegraph Books of the Year
'Excellent'
David Owen, New Statesman
Books of the Year
'Roberts combines scholarship with caustic
humour . reading Salisbury is an unmitigated pleasure.'
Derek Turner, Chronicles
'It captures the essence of Salisbury in
a way that nothing has ever done for me before.'
Roy Jenkins, Financial
Times
'Roberts set out to fill the largest historiographical
gap in modern British political biography and has succeeded
brilliantly.'
Ian McIntyre, The Times
'Andrew Roberts has now brought Salisbury
out of the shadows with this scholarly portrait. He has captured
the essence of the peer in an important, highly readable work.'
Michael Rhodes, Yorkshire
Post
'I have to salute Roberts's achievement
in making Salisbury not only live as as an historical character
but also act as a spokesman, from beyond the grave, for the
present generation of not-so-young fogeys.'
Niall Ferguson, Sunday
Telegraph Books of the Year
'Roberts deals with the whole man,
while also giving a brilliant account of the interplay of
personalities during Salisbury's career.'
John Grigg, Sunday Telegraph
'The great strength of Roberts's biography,
which deals admirably with all the crucial episodes in Salisbury's
career, is that a substantial part of it is devoted to the
period before Salisbury could have been thought of as a 'Titan'.'
Asa Briggs, Literary
Review
'This biography is also something of a political
pamphlet, a sophisticated rallying cry for disoriented modern
Toryism.'
Economist
'Andrew Roberts has produce a superbly written
and wonderfully exciting biography of Lord Salisbury, three
times Queen Victoria's Prime Minister.'
Will Podmore, Morning
Star
'It is splendid to have an up-to-date, fully
finished and very well-written Life based on thorough research
into the archives.'
Robert Blake, Daily
Telegraph
'Andrew Roberts's magisterial and meticulously
researched biography is simply wonderful.'
Claus von Bòlow,
Catholic Herald
'Salisbury is brought out from the
shadows of those other, more fizzy Victorian political titans,
Disraeli and Gladstone, in this absolutely definitive work
by Andrew Roberts.'
John Patten, Country
Life
'A great Prime Minister, a great character
and a great book.'
John Pollock, Church
of England Newspaper
'Roberts is excellent both on the minute
detail and the broad interpretation of Salisbury's political
life and achievements.'
Nottingham Evening Post
'Roberts has turned a massive amount
of research into a sweeping read.'
David Sexton, Evening
Standard
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