Showing Gladstone : heroic minister, 1865-1898 by Richard Shannon

It has been 17 years since Richard Shannon's highly praised first volume of his classic two-volume Gladstone biography (Gladstone: Peel's Inheritor, 1809- 1865 but the long wait has been well worth it. This second volume is, if anything, even more impressive than the first: packed with telling detail, drawing on the same wealth of intimate revelation contained in Gladstone's journals, but with a broader canvas. We are taken through his four terms as Prime Minister, and Shannon has fascinating things to say about how his great age (starting only his second term as PM he was already well into his 70s) affected the political climate of the day. But there is also the personal, and in particular what Shannon calls "the odd mix of the spiritual and the erotic" in his make-up. The prostitutes are still here, or rather Gladstone's "rescue work" earnestly trying to convince them to changes their ways (despite warnings from his party that the voters might misunderstand his motives), as well as his habit of sublimating his urges by, of all things, cutting down trees. But throughout it all it is the enormous humanity of the man that shines through, and that makes the book--indeed, the whole, epic two-volume account--such an uplifting read. --Adam Roberts