Disraeli

The appearance of this book is notable for Disraeli studies but also as a memorial to its author, whose tragically early death in October 2015 took away one of the most productive and interesting historians of his generation. Most of David Cesarani’s work concerned twentieth-century Jewish history; much of it dwelt on very sombre themes. It was interesting, then, that he accepted a commission to write on Benjamin Disraeli for Yale’s Jewish Lives series. The academic world has not yet reached consensus on whether Disraeli was a substantial figure as a politician, novelist or intellectual, or just an illusionist. Once one shuns the easy path of default cynicism about his motives, the interpretive challenges mount, because he left so much tantalising, fertile and idiosyncratic material. Cesarani set about tackling this conundrum with relish. As required by the series format, this study focuses on Disraeli and Jewishness, but it is still in most respects an effective, pithy all-round biography, combining clarity for the less expert reader with acute analysis at every stage. Its vigour, pace and generally good judgment offer strong testament to Cesarani’s historical skills: the account of the Eastern Question in the 1870s, for example, is a model. There are a few mistakes: Hughenden is misspelt throughout; so are Gray’s Inn and Sara Austen; Lord John Russell is made Prime Minister in 1830–1 and once appears as ‘Lord Jim’, leading us to speculate where a more Conradian approach to leadership might have taken him. More seriously, perhaps, Cesarani’s summary of the denouement of both Contarini Fleming and Tancred is awry, while he misreads O’Connell’s speech on the Damascus affair as a reference to Disraeli. Nonetheless, the book’s two main arguments are clear and largely appealing

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