Book Review: Charles Clarke, Toby S James, Tim Bale and Patrick Diamond (eds), British Conservative Leaders
| Author | David Jeffery |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929916666765 |
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsBritain and Ireland |
Book Reviews 139
people who bear the title of ‘political philoso-
pher’ typically do so without ever having
served in the domain about which they com-
ment or analyse. Among the exceptions to this
norm was Edmund Burke, who served for
nearly three decades in the House of Commons
and who participated in many of the great
debates of the era. Yet, for all the attention
which Burke and his ideas have received from
scholars, integrating the two aspects of his
career has often proven difficult, with studies
of his thought often divorced from the events
which shaped them.
One of the achievements of Richard
Bourke’s biography of Burke, therefore, is his
reconciliation of these two spheres into a com-
prehensive study of Burke’s thought and politi-
cal career. Bourke sees this career as addressing
two perennial issues of eighteenth-century
politics: those of Britain’s rapidly evolving
empire and the change taking place in govern-
ing systems in many parts of the Western
world. One or both of these are at central stage
throughout most of Burke’s time in Parliament,
and as a prominent Whig he was at the fore-
front of Commons activity concerning them.
Using Burke’s speeches, letters and other
works, Bourke analyses his contributions and
observations explaining what his positions
were and how these fit within his overall
schema of political thought. This involves not
only just a study of Burke’s own writings but
also those of his contemporaries and the clas-
sics which framed their thinking. The breadth
of material involved is impressive and contrib-
utes to the value of Bourke’s analysis, which is
further supported by the modern historical
works upon which he draws to supply a context
informed by hindsight.
It is this combination of erudition, thor-
oughness and insight which makes Bourke’s
tome such a valuable contribution to the study
of both Edmund Burke and eighteenth-century
British politics. Although lacking in details of
Burke’s personal life (for which Bourke help-
fully steers readers towards FP Lock’s recent
two-volume biography), the book’s focus on
Burke’s long parliamentary career and the
events with which it engaged allows for a
depth of analysis that can be lacking in other
studies. It is a book that is essential reading for
anyone interested in Burke’s ideas and how he
applied them over the course of his long politi-
cal career, and one likely long to remain a
standard by which other works on Burke are
judged.
Mark Klobas
(Scottsdale Community College, Arizona)
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929916674574
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British Conservative Leaders by Charles
Clarke, Toby S James, Tim Bale and Patrick
Diamond (eds). London: Biteback Publishing,
2015. 478pp., £25.00 (h/b), ISBN 9781849549219
British Conservative Leaders is part of a three-
volume collection which seeks to increase
understanding of how we assess party leaders,
and acts as a companion to British Labour
Leaders and British Liberal Leaders.
Beginning with Sir Robert Peel and ending
with David Cameron, this work provides a
series of detailed histories of Conservative
Party leaders. This, however, is not the main
strength of the work. What sets British
Conservative Leaders apart from other histo-
ries of Conservative Party leaders is the use of
statecraft theory as an analytical framework,
within which leaders of the Conservative Party
can be judged.
Statecraft can be understood as a mixture of
a winning electoral strategy, governing compe-
tence, party management, political argument
hegemony and the bending of the rules of the
game (or constitutional management). These
factors are explored in Part I of the book, which
also outlines the importance of understanding
contextual factors when assessing party lead-
ers. Part I also contains a ‘general election test’
of Conservative leaders, a quantitative analysis
by Charles Clarke with some surprising out-
comes. For example, out of the 17 leaders who
contested a general election, Cameron is
ranked third in terms of seat gained – beating
Thatcher (fourth) and Churchill (fifteenth) (p.
45). Although Clarke accepts that this is a
fairly basic analysis, it serves to show how our
understanding of leadership depends upon
more than statistical measures.
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