Gladstone: A Biography by Roy JenkinsReview by: Stanley HoffmannForeign Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 4 (Jul. - Aug., 1997), p. 157Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20048154 .
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Recent Books
she liked to think." He concludes that
the "most obvious missed opportunity" was Britain's failure to join the Com
mon Market early on.
Gladstone: A Biography, by roy jenkins.
New York: Random House, 1997,
698 pp. $35.00. This wonderfully readable volume gives us a brilliant account of the politics of
nineteenth-century England, and of the
weight of the "Irish question" in partic ular. But Jenkins, a former statesman,
also writes with a novelist's gifts. What
is, therefore, particularly admirable is
the re-creation of character, the psycho
logical insights into the motivations
and complexities of a formidable, tor
mented, "most remarkable specimen of
humanity." Gladstone was a man whose
energy?physical as well as intellec
tual?was awesome, a voracious and
erudite reader, a great orator, and a man
who claimed that "religion was more
important to him than politics." Be
tween 1845 and 1851 (from his 36th to his 42nd year) Gladstone "experienced four religio-sexual emotional crises" in
which "temptation and guilt in combi
nation indisputably produced high states of neurotic tension." Gladstone's
wife once exclaimed: "Oh, William
dear, if you weren't such a great man
you would be a terrible bore." With his
extreme sensitivity and frequent self
righteousness, he must indeed have
been more than a little hard to take.
But the sprightly, smooth style of Jenk ins removes any possibility of boredom.
In an age of enormous biographies,
many of which tend to be "pathogra
phies," this study manages to seem
short, and does full justice to its eminent subject.
Western Hemisphere KENNETH MAXWELL
A Culture of Collusion: An Inside Look at the Mexican Press, edited by
William A. orme, jr. Miami:
North-South Center Press, University of Miami, 1997,159 pp. $16.95 (paper)
A timely and valuable book on a long taboo topic on the U.S.-Mexico horizon:
the complex relationship between the
ostensibly independent Mexican news
media and the governing party. This
well-documented study claims the rela
tionship is often sustained by subsidies,
bribery, fear, and, on occasion, murder.
The result of a two-year investigative
project by the New York-based Com mittee to Protect Journalists, headed by Orme, this pioneering report reveals a
pattern of violence against journalists outside the capital and includes brief histories of 11 Mexican reporters who
were killed in mysterious circumstances
over the past 10 years. A chapter by
Marjorie Miller and Juanita Darling, both formerly with The Los Angeles Times,
Mexico City bureau, also explores the
financial and political interests of Emilio
Azcarraga's Televisa empire and the
growing Mexican influence on Spanish
language news broadcasting in the
United States. Under the North American
Free Trade Agreement, Orme says, there
is no "level playing field." U.S. law permits
To order any book reviewed or advertised in Foreign Affairs, call 800-255-2665.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS July/August 1997 [*57]
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