Volume 46, Number 8 · May 6, 1999
Cat & Pig
By Noel Annan
Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills
edited by Mary Soames
Houghton Mifflin, 702 pp., $35.00
The British like to think of their country as the cradle of parliamentary democracy, but many years passed before it became democratic. The aristocracy ruled during the nineteenth century, and even in the twentieth century, when women at last won the vote, patrician government prevailed. There were gaps when Labour formed a government, but although some ministers came from the working class the essence of the British Establishment hardly changed. Until 1914 there was still such a thing as 'Society': when in the Twenties a rival, Café Society, appeared, the two had to overlap. The administrations after World War II of Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, and Douglas-Home remained patrician.
Review, 4305 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |