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The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy David Cannadine 9780375703683 Books

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The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy David Cannadine 9780375703683 Books

Superbly detailed study of a British social phenomenon almost universally noticed, but never broadly treated nor well documented. 150 years ago, the UK was still dominated by the descendants—literal and spiritual—of those who had ruled the island since the Conquest. A small group of great landowning families provided most of the country's leaders, monopolised social prestige, dominated the professions, provided a disproportionate share of the nation's leading thinkers, and had—despite their prejudices—even taken a major leadership role in its evolving business culture. 50 years later, its representation in all these areas (except society) was more symbolic than real, and 50 years after that, the members of that aristocratic class were mostly absent—and the accepted dominance of the remainder was no longer taken for granted. How and why that happened is explored in this, Prof. Cannadine's best-known book. A massive and somewhat repetitive study by a leading social historian, this volume appears to exhaust its subject. Although replete with anecdotes, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy does not really give one much of a feel for what life in the ranks of that aristocracy was like, nor does it limn the individual lives of its leading figures. As the author notes in his introduction, the roles of women in that society are almost completely ignored because of its focus on the erosion of the fortunes and honours of aristocrats, which were monopolised almost entirely by males. Necessary for any social historian or scholarly amateur, but not lively general reading


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The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy David Cannadine 9780375703683 Books Reviews

For followers of Masterpiece Theater, be forewarned that this a serious study and definitely not a light overview of the decline of the British aristocracy. But if you have the patience to read the 700+ pages you will come away with a more profound insight into British social class and politics. Obviously David Cannadine has done his research. For an American like myself who has long been something of an Anglophile, this filled in many gaps for me. Although it assumes a knowledge of the British political and class systems that is over my head, that is not essential for gleaning the main points of this study. On the down side, the paperback copy that I have has very small, crowded print and all the pictures are dull and faded. Nevertheless, if you are seriously interested in the British class system, this is a great study. It will inform all my British reading in the future.
This book is an absolute must read for anyone interested not merely in the decline of British aristocracy, but in the swift changes wrought in British society, politics and literature from 1880 to the outbreak of WWII. Cannadine does cover WWII and the following decades, but he gives them rather short shrift, for, as the exacting and exhaustive main body of this magisterial work makes superabundantly clear, the British aristocracy was already in rigor mortis by then.

What made this work so indispensable to me was that it showed the actual, very real, background for literary works written during this period Waugh, Wilde, Wodehouse, Yeats and, of course, the Mitfords. If you want to know the reality of what happened to estates like Waugh's fictional Brideshead, you will learn all about the land devaluation, estate taxes and encumbrances on such estates originally contracted in order to ensure entail and jointures, but now spelling their doom. You will meet many, all too many, real life Lady Marchmains and understand more fully the social backdrop which makes them totally unsuited for the 20th Century.

And, well, let's just take an actual case Bertrand Russell. Primogeniture ensured that the gentrified earldom in which he came of age passed onto his brother. In previous eras, a generous codicil with annuity would have, nevertheless, granted him lifelong security. Unfortunately, due to land devaluation, his brother went bankrupt and lost everything except the title. Russell, too, lost everything and became a Socialist member of the Labour party, not entirely because of his ideological position and philosophical beliefs, but because of something deeper from which they arose a visceral animosity to the industrialists and capitalists who now controlled the country. As Cannadine points out, there were really only two extreme positions for such disillusioned, disinherited aristos to take socialism or fascism. Of course, Russell was a genius who made great advances in the field of mathematics and went on to win the Nobel Prize in literature. But, through most of his life, he had to support himself through lectures and writing; and, until the publication and unexpected popularity of his A History of Western Philosophy, he was almost continuously on the verge of bankruptcy. Even after his brother died and he became Lord Russell, he maintained that the only benefit that accrued from the title was the ability to secure hotel rooms. The point exemplified here, so well explicated by Cannadine, is that, after over seven hundred years of Earls and their ilk being the ruling, moneyed class, they met an end so swiftly and irretrievably at the hands of industrialism and capitalism, that these former members of the ruling class had no recourse in this unfamiliar world than to become quixotic Utopians, or socialists like Russell or quixotic Arcadians, or fascists, like Oswald Moseley.

Cannadine is a wonderful writer, and in spite of the jumble of numerous titled names that pile up in so many paragraphs - Duke This, Duchess That etc. - which he must needs provide along with 8 Appendices and over 3,000 footnotes in order to provide the scholarly underpinnings necessary for the work's credibility, it is all surprisingly readable. In one section, Cannadine larkishly names the chapters after Shakespearean plays Ireland A Winter's Tale, The Church Much Ado About Nothing etc.

My attention was drawn to this work by reviews of a spate of books that have recently come out on this subject. The reviews, almost to a one, compare the new ones to this book, and find them seriously lacking indeed in the juxtaposition. I can only say that Cannadine's ten years spent in the composition of it were extremely well spent.

Finally, there is the question of how one has come to feel about all these once privileged Peers after wading through this meticulous account of the upheavals that led to their downfall. I should say that any reader who has even only slight misgivings about the fast-paced, leisureless, de facto capitalist lives we all live now to some extent can't help but feel a touch of sympathy for these hothouse flowers pushed out into the cold.
Let's allow the scion of a once powerful family to have the last word. Lord Robert Cecil "I am unfitted for political life, because I have a resigning habit of mind."
Great read. Yes, it is lengthy but worth it. For those of us who have a soft spot for Aristocracy this has to be one of the saddest chapters in British history. The wholesale destruction of an entire class of people is at once fascinating and frustrating. That the gentry and the grantees did nothing to stop their own extinction is something I still have not come to terms with yet. If you have a desire to understand the upper crust as something other than eccentric rich folks, then this book is for you.
Superbly detailed study of a British social phenomenon almost universally noticed, but never broadly treated nor well documented. 150 years ago, the UK was still dominated by the descendants—literal and spiritual—of those who had ruled the island since the Conquest. A small group of great landowning families provided most of the country's leaders, monopolised social prestige, dominated the professions, provided a disproportionate share of the nation's leading thinkers, and had—despite their prejudices—even taken a major leadership role in its evolving business culture. 50 years later, its representation in all these areas (except society) was more symbolic than real, and 50 years after that, the members of that aristocratic class were mostly absent—and the accepted dominance of the remainder was no longer taken for granted. How and why that happened is explored in this, Prof. Cannadine's best-known book. A massive and somewhat repetitive study by a leading social historian, this volume appears to exhaust its subject. Although replete with anecdotes, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy does not really give one much of a feel for what life in the ranks of that aristocracy was like, nor does it limn the individual lives of its leading figures. As the author notes in his introduction, the roles of women in that society are almost completely ignored because of its focus on the erosion of the fortunes and honours of aristocrats, which were monopolised almost entirely by males. Necessary for any social historian or scholarly amateur, but not lively general reading