The Disraeli Myth : The Making of a Conservative Tradition

Tracing the multifaceted construction and deployment of the Disraeli myth and its legacy in Conservative (and conservative) politicsDuring his lifetime, Benjamin Disraeli, the late-Victorian Conservative Prime Minister (and popular novelist), was often branded as unprincipled and opportunisticclaims that were frequently laced with antisemitism. Yet in the century following his death in 1881, Disraelis life and ideas were appropriated, reconstructed and circulated to cast him as the founder of a socially minded One Nation brand of British conservatism. In this compelling study, Emily Jones traces the mythologising that made Disraeli a touchstone for Conservative (and conservative) politics. Jones shows how each generation and its political thinkersfrom Karl Marx to Margaret Thatcherhas made and remade Disraeli in its own image, seeing in him a source of inspiration or legitimation in different contexts and in support of disparate policies.Drawing on sources that range from political speeches to Hollywood

films, Jones charts the posthumous transformation of Disraeli into a paragon of One Nation conservatism. A mythical Disraeli was invoked by contemporaries developing distinctly Tory conceptions of democracy, empire and social policy that nonetheless reaffirmed the importance of social hierarchy, private property and low taxation. As the two-party system began to realign around an axis of welfare and economic management in the interwar period, Disraelis political utility reached its zenitha position, Jones shows, significantly bolstered by new interpretations of Disraelis Jewishness, the emerging university disciplines of history and English literature and the rise of the Labour Party. Joness authoritative account offers an illuminating new perspective on the role historical narratives have had in shaping accounts of political reality, ideology and identity in modern Britain. [Publisher's text]