Lord Salisbury's World

Lord Salisbury (1830–1903) is now a subject of intense historical attention. This important study moves away from conventional biography and presents an original portrait of the mental world inhabited by late Victorian Conservatives at the time when their world-view was coming under severe strain. At the centre of the picture is the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, but Lord Salisbury's World does not simply tell the story of his life and politics. Instead, it asks sensitive questions about how the political, intellectual and religious environments of the late Victorian period seemed to one of its sharpest intellects, and it situates Salisbury and his immediate entourage in a wide landscape of relationships, perceptions and problems. Professor Bentley takes the reader into Conservative assumptions about time and space, property and society, religion and the state, and the past and the future - the very language in which they expressed themselves.

This is the first study in over thirty years of the mind and context of arguably the greatest Conservative leader of the nineteenth century
Situates Salisbury in the mainstream of Tory thinking and tradition, and questions conventional assumptions about how Tories viewed their world
Written in an easy, accessible and witty style

Reviews & endorsements

'… this book is considerably more than a biography. It is an extensive review of the political, intellectual, religious an social ambiance of late nineteenth century Britain.' Open History

'Bentley does not seek to advance any particular view of Salisbury or of his significance, and, as a result, this is a book from which, more than is usual among academic volumes, readers will come away with different ideas.' The Times Literary Supplement

'Bentley clearly enjoyed writing this book and readers will share that pleasure in digesting a very sophisticated treatment of its subject.' History

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