Books, Arts & Manners: Industry and Empire

Joseph Chamberlain: Entrepreneur in Politics, by Peter T. Marsh (Yale, 720 pp., $45)

JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN was the most important English politician in the last century never to be prime minister. He was more powerful than most party leaders and had more impact on policy than most prime ministers. In reviewing the first of Chamberlain’s biographies, Winston Churchill marveled at his legacy: “He lighted Beacon fires which are still burning; he sounded trumpet-calls whose echoes still call stubborn soldiers to the field.” Six decades later, reading Peter T. Marsh’s thorough, highly intelligent, and well-written biography, one realizes that the embers still glow and the music lingers on. Too bad, for Chamberlain’s legacy is a decidedly mixed one. And despite the many differences between Britain then and America now, the story has more than a passing relevance to some of today’s debates.

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Fareed Zakaria

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Joseph Chamberlain: Entrepreneur in Politics, by Peter T. Marsh (Yale, 720 pp., $45)

JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN was the most important English politician in the last century never to be prime minister. He was more powerful than most party leaders and had more impact on policy than most prime ministers. In reviewing the first of Chamberlain’s biographies, Winston Churchill marveled at his legacy: “He lighted Beacon fires which are still burning; he sounded trumpet-calls whose echoes still call stubborn soldiers to the field.” Six decades later, reading Peter T. Marsh’s thorough, highly intelligent, and well-written biography, one realizes that the embers still glow and the music lingers on. Too bad, for Chamberlain’s legacy is a decidedly mixed one. And despite the many differences between Britain then and America now, the story has more than a passing relevance to some of today’s debates.