PanThe National ReviewIt is, in the first place, curiously old-fashioned. In what is necessarily a highly condensed work of synthesis, most space is devoted to high politics ... it is an approach that tends to minimize the influence of ideas and culture on political dynamics. Cannadine is of course aware of extraneous forces, such as class and religion, but he is more interested in 'top-down' factors than in 'bottom-up' ones ... Second, Victorious Century is a belated example of what Herbert Butterfield called 'the Whig school of history.' That is, he believes not only in progress, but in the right of posterity to condescend toward the past ... That seems to this reader a curious attitude for a historian to take towards the staggering achievements of that era ... It is as if he cannot quite forgive the British for preserving their traditions and inventing new ones, for hanging on to as much as possible of their way of life, even as their world was being turned upside down.
Charles Moore
RaveThe Wall Street JournalIt is not just authorized, but authoritative. Indeed, I venture to say that Mr. Moore’s 'Margaret Thatcher' is one of the greatest political biographies ever written.
