David Lloyd George and Welsh Liberalism

Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description

Casgliad o erthyglau gwreiddiol ailasesiadol, a ailgyhoeddir yn awr ar ffurf cyfrol, sy'n taflu goleuni newydd ar ddigwyddiadau a themâu allweddol ym mywyd a gyrfa cwbl unigryw Lloyd George. Yn cynnwys mynegai manwl.

Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description

A collection of seminal revisionist articles, now republished in book format, casting new light on many of the keynote events and themes in Lloyd George's wholly unique life and career. Includes a comprehensive index.

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Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review

As a National Library of Wales archivist, the author, who has spent thirty years studying Lloyd George, has had unique access to the personal and political letters between Lloyd George, his family and his principal private secretary (A. J. Sylvester), as well as the papers of many of his important Welsh contemporaries. In the course of his career, Jones has published many articles in scholarly journals which are here gathered together and edited as commentary on aspects of Lloyd George’s career from 1886 to the time of his death, and that of his son Gwilym. Such a collection might be obscure and of interest primarily to fellow historians, but Jones makes the most of his material to convey, by telling extract, an immensely vivid and revealing play of personalities, and their reactions to the great events they encountered and influenced. Throughout the book we hear the fascinating voice of Lloyd George himself in all his confidence and frustration, self-knowledge and self-deception, political shrewdness and personal affections. His stormy relationship with the Liberal Party and with the development of Wales as a political entity is chronicled by the author with both learning and wit. Some of the later chapters reveal the less well-known personalities and achievements of his fiery daughter, Lady Megan, (who carried further both the nationalism and radicalism of her father) and his son Gwilym (who ‘drifted right’ and became a Conservative Home Secretary). The letters dealing with Lloyd George’s part in the 1916 crisis and his subsequent attitude to Churchill’s proceedings in the Second World War reveal how knotty and persistent the problems of balancing parliamentary scrutiny and the decisiveness needed during war (not to mention the malign effect of a leak to the press) have always been. Indeed, many familiar issues, from Welsh sovereignty to coalition politics, find an echo here and it is revealing to see the immediate and complex responses of those closely involved in such matters in the recent past. The author succeeds in combining meticulous but unobtrusive scholarship with sympathy and the ability to elucidate the motives and principles involved in a complex series of political situations, while allowing the authentic voices of his subjects to come through to the reader.