Political

The Tragedy of Success

In the cynical atmosphere of the Congress of Vienna, Consalvi imposed himself on his fellow statesmen and fought a successful battle for the restoration of the Papal States. E.E.Y. Hales describes a master of European diplomacy.

Blyden of Liberia

J.D. Hargreaves introduces a prophet of nationalism in the coastal countries of West Africa.

Benckendorff and Mlle George

Metternich and Benckendorff, who played leading roles on the European scene, first met under very different circumstances; P.S. Squire describes how they were both attached to a charming French actress.

J.S. Mill as a Political Philosopher

In his youth hailed by Carlyle as a “new Mystic,” later acclaimed by his contemporaries as the “saint of rationalism,” John Stuart Mill was an extraordinarily versatile writer. Maurice Cranston profiles a man of very wide interests, who became the personification of Victorian liberal democracy and “the agnostic’s equivalent of a godfather” to the infant Bertrand Russell.

Henry Dundas: Harry the Ninth

A manager of men and a master of contemporary politics, writes Esmond Wright, Dundas was Pitt's energetic colleague “during the most critical years in British history except for 1940”—not a hero, but a vigorous man of affairs who “rendered some service to both his countries.”