{"title":"Edward Pearce","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the sharp wit and astute political commentary of Edward Pearce. Discover insightful essays and biographies that dissect modern Britain with unmatched eloquence. A must-read for political enthusiasts.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"pitt-the-elder-book-edward-pearce-9781847920119","title":"Pitt the Elder","description":"This remarkable book opens at the dawn of the British Empire - with the great sea battle at Quiberon Bay where French ships, intended for the 1759 invasion of Britain, are chased, caught and defeated by a fleet commanded by Admiral Sir Edward Hawke. In this momentous victory Britain effectively settled the outcome of the Seven Years' War and established itself as the world's dominant imperial power.  At the heart of the conflict with France was William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham and Britain's future Prime Minister. Weaving together military history and political biography Edward Pearce provides a portrait of the man 'with an eye like a diamond' - a man who had close ties with the slave trade and who preached war and British supremacy on a world stage. Alongside detailed descriptions of battles in Europe and North America we follow Pitt's career as a politician - one that was closely intertwined with General James Wolfe at Quebec; American independence; the slow mind of George III and the quick one of the rake and outsider John Wilkes.  Posterity has invested Pitt with a mystique - presented him as heroic, a titan, a brilliant statesman and military strategist. Edward Pearce scruitinises the reputation and investigates the extent to which Britain's victories and imperial advances can be credited to Pitt alone or to a coalition of commanders, naval administrators and foreign allies such as Frederick the Great of Prussia. He also shows us Pitt the man - vain, ruthless, tortured with physical illness, succumbing to mental collapse.  Pitt the Elder is a masterful portrait of arguably the most powerful minister ever to guide Britain's foreign policy and of an age which marked a new epoch in history, when the balance of power in Europe and the world was set for almost two centuries.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49510893551889,"sku":"GOR005065211","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51371514331409,"sku":"GOR010548050","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51539718865169,"sku":"GOR006195219","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/184792011X.jpg?v=1751441616"},{"product_id":"diaries-of-charles-greville-book-edward-pearce-9781844137572","title":"Diaries of Charles Greville","description":"Charles Greville (1794-1865) made his first occasional diary entries in 1814, but the diary only became a regular habit in the mid-1820s, continuing with occasional breaks, about which he is self-reproachful, through the reigns of George IV, William IV and Victoria. Finally, in 1860, after shaking his head over the worrying triumphs of Garibaldi, he closed it, once and for all. The grandson of a duke, Greville looked with a level and scornful eye upon royalty. George was 'the most worthless dog that ever lived'; William 'the silliest old gentleman in his own dominions, but what can be expected of a man with a head like a pineapple?' The diaries roused Queen Victoria - 'an odd woman' - from the lethargy of her widowhood. She spoke of Greville's 'indiscretion, indelicacy, ingratitude toward friends, betrayal of confidence and shameful disloyalty'. Greville's circle included Talleyrand, Wellington, Macaulay, Sydney Smith, Princess Lieven, Lord Grey, Melbourne, Guizot and Disraeli, as well as 'jockeys, bookmakers and blackguards'. As Clerk of the Privy Council, Greville works for a compromise on the Reform Bill. He witnesses Covent Garden theatre burning down. His closest friend, Lord De Ros, is caught cardsharping. Visiting Balmoral, he finds Albert and Victoria living 'not merely like small gentlefolks, but like very small gentlefolks'. When cholera comes, he writes laconically of 'Mrs Smith, young and beautiful, taken ill while dressing for Church and dead by nightfall.' Not a chatterbox, Charles Greville brilliantly assembles everyone else's chatter. This is the intelligent voice of another age, an uneasy aristocrat catching history on the turn and looking dubiously at the future.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49511493697809,"sku":"GOR001186069","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1844137570.jpg?v=1751027058"},{"product_id":"great-man-book-edward-pearce-9781844134052","title":"The Great Man","description":"The year 1721 has many splendours: great houses built by William Kent, fine pictures and the fruits of commerce. But there are also thirteen public hanging days a year, drunkenness is endemic, organised crime rampages through the streets. And politics are ferocious. Only a generation earlier, The Pretender failed to take the Crown; the new King is cursed as a damned foreigner; James' followers - the Jacobites - conspire and are persecuted; the South Sea Bubble collapses.Robert Walpole, once imprisoned for financial chicanery, assumes political control and becomes 'Prime Minister'. He personally detects a Jacobite plot, is dismissed in 1727 on the death of George I, recruits the new King's clever wife, Caroline, and bounces cheerfully back. Coarse, corrupt and cynical, Walpole dominates King, Parliament and Government until 1742. This is Mr Worldywiseman, keeping England out of war for twenty years and setting up a stable and growing economy. All politics of a kind we can recognise today begin with Robert Walpole. And here, in Edward Pearce's elegant book, he is brought vividly back to life.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49518675820817,"sku":"GOR003372248","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53001959309585,"sku":"GOR002864954","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1844134059.jpg?v=1751444590"},{"product_id":"pitt-the-elder-book-edward-pearce-9781845951436","title":"Pitt the Elder","description":"This remarkable book opens at the dawn of the British Empire - with the great sea battle at Quiberon Bay where French ships, intended for the 1759 invasion of Britain, are chased, caught and defeated by a fleet commanded by Admiral Sir Edward Hawke. In this momentous victory Britain effectively settled the outcome of the Seven Years' War and established itself as the world's dominant imperial power.  At the heart of the conflict with France was William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham and Britain's future Prime Minister. Weaving together military history and political biography Edward Pearce provides a portrait of the man 'with an eye like a diamond' - a man who had close ties with the slave trade and who preached war and British supremacy on a world stage. Alongside detailed descriptions of battles in Europe and North America we follow Pitt's career as a politician - one that was closely intertwined with General James Wolfe at Quebec; American independence; the slow mind of George III and the quick one of the rake and outsider John Wilkes.  Edward Pearce scrutinises the real man at the heart of the historical events and mystique surrounding the legacy of Pitt the Elder, to present a rounded and masterful portrait of arguably the most powerful minister ever to guide Britain's foreign policy and of an age which marked a new epoch in history, when the balance of power in Europe and the world was set for almost two centuries.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49525081604369,"sku":"GOR004404336","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50475151163665,"sku":"CIN1845951433G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50557287268625,"sku":"CIN1845951433A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51865092915473,"sku":"GOR006175855","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1845951433.jpg?v=1751123463"},{"product_id":"diaries-of-charles-greville-book-edward-pearce-9781844134045","title":"The Diaries Of Charles Greville","description":"Charles Greville (1794-1865) made his first occasional diary entries in 1814, but the diary only became a regular habit in the mid-1820s, continuing with occasional breaks, about which he is self-reproachful, through the reigns of George IV, William IV and Victoria.  Finally, in 1860, after shaking his head over the worrying triumphs of Garibaldi, he closed it, once and for all. The grandson of a duke, Greville looked with a level and scornful eye upon royalty.  George was 'the most worthless dog that ever lived'; William 'the silliest old gentleman in his own dominions, but what can be expected of a man with a head like a pineapple?' The diaries roused Queen Victoria - 'an odd woman' - from the lethargy of her widowhood.  She spoke of Greville's 'indiscretion, indelicacy, ingratitude toward friends, betrayal of confidence and shameful disloyalty'. Greville's circle included Talleyrand, Wellington, Macaulay, Sydney Smith, Princess Lieven, Lord Grey, Melbourne, Guizot and Disraeli, as well as 'jockeys, bookmakers and blackguards'.  As Clerk of the Privy Council, Greville works for a compromise on the Reform Bill.  He witnesses Covent Garden theatre burning down.  His closest friend, Lord De Ros, is caught cardsharping. 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This is the intelligent voice of another age, an uneasy aristocrat catching history on the turn and looking dubiously at the future.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49532094480657,"sku":"GOR001083736","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49665754038545,"sku":"GOR002555896","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50765020135697,"sku":"CIN1844134040G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1844134040.jpg?v=1751411781"},{"product_id":"election-rides-book-edward-pearce-9780571166572","title":"Election Rides","description":"Edward Pearce, parliamentary sketchwriter, describes life on the election trail. His 21 day journey takes him through the territory of all three parties, travelling from Battersea to Huntingdon by way of Cardiff and Edinburgh, he passes through constituencies both safe and marginal. This diary of his experiences presents a mixture of political drama and colourful detail - a front-line correspondent's account of the innumerable small-scale battles which decide the outcome of the three-week war.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49535015223569,"sku":"GOR007424342","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53617995153681,"sku":"GOR004356031","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0571166571.jpg?v=1750847051"},{"product_id":"great-man-book-edward-pearce-9780224071819","title":"The Great Man","description":"The year 1721 has many splendours, but there are also thirteen public hanging days a year, drunkenness is endemic and organised crime rampages through the streets. Only a generation earlier James II, suspected of conspiring to enforce Roman Catholicism and subordinate England to France, was driven out by the Whigs. In 1715 his son, the Pretender, failed to take the Crown by armed force. The new King, George I, an intelligent, moderate man, is cursed everywhere as a damned foreigner. James followers, the Jacobites, conspire and are persecuted. In 1720, the South Sea Bubble, an attempt to finance state debt by runaway speculation, collapses. Ruined people mass in Westminster. \"The South Sea\" directors, says an MP, should be thrown into the sea. The Pretender could take over any day. Robert Walpole, once imprisoned for financial chicanery, assumes political control. When the rage subsides he becomes chief minister - or, a new title, \"Prime Minister\". He personally detects a Jacobite plot. Digging in, he buys parliamentary seats wholesale with secret service money. In a runaway theatrical success, \"The Beggar's Opera\", Walpole is compared with the criminal mastermind Jonathan Wild. But he will dominate King, Parliament and Government until 1742. Dismissed in 1727 on the death of George I, he recruits the new King's clever wife, Caroline, and bounces cheerfully back. Coarse, corrupt and cynical, Walpole sits on the Treasury Bench munching little Norfolk apples sent from the estate he is enlarging with political profit. This is Mr Worldlywiseman, keeping England out of war for twenty years and setting up a stable and growing economy. All politics of a kind we can recognise begin with Robert Walpole. 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The struggle is recorded here. The players, painted vividly, speak in their own voices from 170-year-old Hansards: the radicals, Cobbett and Hunt; the Ultras, Wetherell and Eldon, resisting all reform; Lord Chancellor Brougham, drunk and brilliant in a great speech; Lord Alport, who manages the nightmare legislative struggle, tempted by suicide; a mad backbencher demanding a day of fasting and penitence.  Here too are the riots and the quiet politics of British constitutional reform.  The outcome - the 1832 Act - is the most important event in the last 300 years of parliamentary history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49544708522257,"sku":"GOR001706236","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49544787689745,"sku":"GOR001982231","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49657933136145,"sku":"GOR009377805","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0712668446.jpg?v=1751360569"},{"product_id":"senate-of-lilliput-book-edward-pearce-9780571131587","title":"Senate of Lilliput","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49562726957329,"sku":"GOR004798471","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49633815593233,"sku":"GOR004784685","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49647701131537,"sku":"GOR005386217","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0571131581.jpg?v=1750943164"},{"product_id":"lost-leaders-book-edward-pearce-9780316641784","title":"The Lost Leaders","description":"For every politician who reaches No 10 Downing Street, there is at least one, sometimes more, who was going to be Prime Minister. 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Too rough in Denis Healey's case   Not rough enough in Butler's   Offending the prejudices of the party as Iain Macleod did   Too busy working to plot properly   Too left- wing, not left-wing enough   Too clever by half - or, too clever","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49587868565777,"sku":"GOR003237506","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49611263050001,"sku":"GOR002142279","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0751523615.jpg?v=1750881644"},{"product_id":"lines-of-most-resistance-book-edward-pearce-9780316648509","title":"Lines of Most Resistance","description":"Looks through the prism of two momentous political issues - Irish Home Rule and the reform of the House of Lords - to describe not the forces for change, but the forces for resistance to change. 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First Edition. 219 pages. Signed by the author. Illustrated dust jacket over black cloth boards. Gilt lettering. Flat signed by author to title page. Pages are bright and clear with no visible markings. Binding throughout remains firm. Boards have light edgewear with minor corner bumping. Mild crushing to spine, with occasional markings overall. Gilt lettering is bright and clear. Unclipped jacket. Panels and spine have light edgewear with tears and creases. Moderate sunning to spine. 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The grandson of a duke, Greville looked with a level and scornful eye upon royalty.  George was 'the most worthless dog that ever lived'; William 'the silliest old gentleman in his own dominions, but what can be expected of a man with a head like a pineapple?' The diaries roused Queen Victoria - 'an odd woman' - from the lethargy of her widowhood.She spoke of Greville's 'indiscretion, indelicacy, ingratitude toward friends, betrayal of confidence and shameful disloyalty'.  Greville's circle included Talleyrand, Wellington, Macaulay, Sydney Smith, Princess Lieven, Lord Grey, Melbourne, Guizot and Disraeli, as well as 'jockeys, bookmakers and blackguards'.As Clerk of the Privy Council, Greville works for a compromise on the Reform Bill.He witnesses Covent Garden theatre burning down.His closest friend, Lord De Ros, is caught cardsharping. Visiting Balmoral, he finds Albert and Victoria living 'not merely like small gentlefolks, but like very small gentlefolks'. When cholera comes, he writes laconically of 'Mrs Smith, young and beautiful, taken ill while dressing for Church and dead by nightfall.' Not a chatterbox, Charles Greville brilliantly assembles everyone else's chatter. This is the intelligent voice of another age, an uneasy aristocrat catching history on the turn and looking dubiously at the future.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53439853494545,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53439853854993,"sku":"GOR010427046","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781845951771.jpg?v=1776704802"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-edward-pearce.oembed?page=2","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}