Perilous Question
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Perilous Question
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Narrated by:
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Mike Grady
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By:
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Antonia Fraser
About this listen
Internationally best-selling historian Antonia Fraser's book brilliantly evokes one year of pre-Victorian political and social history - the passing of the Great Reform Bill of 1832, an eventful and violent year that featured riots in Bristol, Manchester and Nottingham.
The time-span of the book is from Wellington's intractable declaration in November 1830 that 'The beginning of reform is beginning of revolution' to 7 June 1832, when William IV reluctantly assented to the Great Reform Bill, under the double threat of the creation of 60 new peers in the House of Lords and the threat of revolution throughout the country. Wider themes of Irish and 'negro emancipation' underscore the narrative.
The book is character driven; we learn of the Whig aristocrats prepared to whittle away their own power to bring liberty to the country, the all-too-conservative opposition who included the intransigent Duchess of Kent and Queen Adelaide and finally the 'revolutionaries' like William Cobbett, author of Rural Rides.
These events led to a total change in the way Britain was governed, a two-year revolution that Antonia Fraser brings to vivid dramatic life.
©2013 Antonia Fraser (P)2013 W F Howes LtdListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"A writer whose command of sources, eye for detail, perception of character and shrewd judgment enable her to bring the past truthfully to life" (Sunday Telegraph)
"Drama, betrayal, religion and sex, it's all here, adorned by often fascinating, at times esoteric detail" ( Guardian)
"Fraser brings to life the female stars circling the Sun King in an account that successfully combines erudition with gossipy stories of the kind the Versailles courtiers loved so much." (Sunday Times)
Fantastic!
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The first tells the story of the abolition of the slave trade in the UK in 1805, but why did slavery itself take another 30 or so years to come to an end? Because before the Great Reform Act the few who could vote wouldn't get tlrid of it, after 1832 the newly enlarged elotoarate could and did. Middlemarcj is one of the supreme novels of the English language and set during the ructions around the passing of the act.
Lady Fraser takes us through the tortuous struggle to pass the act with humour, learning and a sharp eye for character. And what characters populate this book. Almost all the main players are eccentric. The author's thorough research let's her drop great dollops of fabulous Regency English into the narrative. A thoroughly entertaining and informative book.
My one criticism is that she could have included something about the repercussions of the act. Other than that, excellent.
When everything changed
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Of more specialized interest
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Because it is difficult to become engrossed, petty quibbles, like the reader not knowing the correct pronunciation of, oft repeated, place names such as Hawick and Belvoir (Hoick and Beaver), and the continual misplaced stresses in sentences, pull one out of the subject matter. This is a failure of direction and editing as much as reading.
I’ll finish the book, but it could, and should, have been so much better.
Reader fails to bring to bring the scholarship to life
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