DOCSLIB.ORG

R Parr Thesis.Pdf

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
R Parr Thesis.Pdf The Letters of Elizabeth Bowen 1934-1949 Roz Parr 1 Table of Contents Rationale.......................................................................................................................................................................3 I. Introduction..............................................................................................................................................3 II. Elizabeth Bowen....................................................................................................................................4 III. Editing Theory......................................................................................................................................6 IV. Methodology........................................................................................................................................14 Bowen’s Letters.......................................................................................................................................................24 February 2nd, 1934 to Lady Cynthia Asquith..............................................................................................24 June 18th, 1942 to John Hayward......................................................................................................25 June 21st, 1943 to Jephson O’Conor ................................................................................................27 May 24th, 1944 to Owen Rutter..........................................................................................................30 March 19th, 1945 to C. Geoffrey Mortlock.....................................................................................31 March 23rd, 1945 to C. Geoffrey Mortlock. ...................................................................................32 April 26th, 1945 to C. Geoffrey Mortlock........................................................................................33 July 30th, 1945 to F.K. Hurst................................................................................................................34 March 1st, 1945 to Joan Penney.........................................................................................................35 January 24th, 1946 to C. Gilardino....................................................................................................36 March 1st, 1946 to Frank Rouda........................................................................................................37 March 18th, 1946 to John Hayward..................................................................................................39 May 3rd, 1946 to Philip Henderson..................................................................................................40 May 14th, 1946 to Denys Kilham-Roberts ....................................................................................41 July 1st, 1946 to Miss Beckett, Harper’s Bazaar..........................................................................42 September 30th, 1946 to Denys Kilham-Roberts.......................................................................45 October 4th, 1946 to Major Thompson...........................................................................................46 October 27th, 1946 to John Hayward..............................................................................................47 June 2nd, 1948 to Daniel George .......................................................................................................51 June 17th, 1948 to Denys Kilham-Roberts ...................................................................................53 February 21st, 1949 to Ralph Cooke................................................................................................54 April 30th, 1949 to Ralph Cooke .......................................................................................................55 June 15th, 1949 to Ralph Cooke..........................................................................................................56 August 3rd, 1949 to Ralph Cooke ......................................................................................................57 Emendations…….....................................................................................................................................................58 Biographical Register............................................................................................................................................59 Notes............................................................................................................................................................................63 Maps of Bowen’s Correspondence Locations.............................................................................................74 Photograph Locations...........................................................................................................................................77 Appendix A................................................................................................................................................................79 Works Cited...............................................................................................................................................................80 2 Rationale I. Introduction Declan Kiberd describes the characters of Elizabeth Bowen as “ladies and gentlemen [who] find themselves caught in a crisis of perpetual anticipation followed by inevitable disappointment, with all their days an expensive preparation for some splendid epiphany which never transpires” (377). I suppose, as a senior in college, I felt like one of Bowen’s characters. I was on the cusp of full adulthood, perpetually anticipating an anticlimactic graduation and entrance into the ‘real world.’ I was, and continue to be, amazed by Bowen’s hauntingly poignant prose in which she captures the tenuous nature of life so well. Bowen’s work, and her life, has a sense of ambiguity, an inability to be categorized. Bowen saw the binaries presented to her and effectively moved between them, occupying the gray space in the middle that eluded categorization. As an Anglo-Irish woman she shifted between the Irish and the English, maintaining one tradition while dismissing another. Her personal relationships were situated between the heterosexual and the homosexual. Her stories combine the realm of the living with the realm of the dead. She even lived during both World Wars, making each one a reference point between which she created some of her most moving fiction. She shifts between the Gothic and the modern; connections have been made between Bowen and Henry James, Bowen and Sheridan Le Fanu, Bowen and Oscar Wilde, Bowen and Virginia Woolf. Bowen transcends this sort of categorization. The only person against whom she can be compared is herself. This edition of Bowen’s letters is meant to establish Elizabeth Bowen as a historic and literary figure by way of her own correspondence, allowing the reader to glean what he or she 3 can from Bowen’s personal writings to learn more about this enigmatic literary figure. II. Elizabeth Bowen Elizabeth Bowen was born on June 7th, 1899 in Dublin, Ireland to Henry Charles Cole Bowen and Florence Colley Bowen. Her parents were members of the Anglo-Irish gentry, and Bowen spent much of her early childhood in Dublin and at her family’s home, Bowen’s Court, in County Cork. Her Irish upbringing was cut short when her father became mentally ill in 1907. At the age of seven years old, Bowen left Ireland for England with her mother, and the pair eventually settled in Hythe. After a mere five years in Hythe, Bowen’s mother passed away, leaving Elizabeth to be raised by her aunts on the Kentish coast. These early tragedies haunt Bowen’s fiction, particularly her ghost stories and orphaned children (Ellmann). Bowen’s upbringing in both England and Ireland led to her fragmented sense of national identity. Declan Kiberd explains, “If the Anglo-Irish were a hyphenated people, forever English in Ireland, forever Irish in England, then [Bowen] knew that better than most. At school in England, she played up her wild Irish side, yet she also tried to make herself more English than the English by her perfect decorum and style” (Kiberd 367). Bowen worked to float in between, haunting the space that separated the two nations and shifting from one to the other when it best suited her needs. Bowen began writing short stories at 20. Her first collection, Encounters, was published in 1923. In that same year, she married Alan Cameron, Assistant Secretary for Education in Northampton. It has been speculated that their marriage was never consummated due to Cameron’s homosexuality and that Bowen engaged in a number of extramarital affairs with men and women, as well. Regardless, the couple remained married until Cameron’s death in 1952 4 (Ellmann). The couple moved to Oxford in 1925 when Cameron was appointed Secretary of Education for the city of Oxford. While at Oxford, Bowen enjoyed tremendous social and professional success as her first novel The Hotel was published in 1927. After a decade in Oxford, Bowen and Cameron moved to Regent’s Park, London in 1935. This is the location from which Bowen wrote many of the letters contained in this edition. The couple remained in London until 1944 when neighboring buildings were bombed during World War II. While at Regent’s Park, Bowen wrote some of her greatest short stores. In
Load more

Recommended publications
  • John Lehmann's New Writing: the Duty to Be Tormented
    John Lehmann’s New Writing: The Duty to Be Tormented Françoise Bort To cite this version: Françoise Bort. John Lehmann’s New Writing: The Duty to Be Tormented. Synergies Royaume Uni et Irlande, Synergies, 2011, The War in the Interwar, edited by Martyn Cornick, pp.63-73. halshs- 01097893 HAL Id: halshs-01097893 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01097893 Submitted on 7 Jun 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivatives| 4.0 International License John Lehmann’s New Writing: the Duty to be Tormented Françoise Bort Université de Bourgogne Synergies Royaume-Uni Royaume-Uni Summary: John Lehmann’s magazine New Writing, launched in 1936, may be said to give literary historians a slow-motion image of the evolution of 63-73 pp. artistic consciousness in one of the most turbulent periods of the twentieth et century. Throughout the fourteen years of its existence, encompassing the Irlande Spanish Civil War and the Second World War, the magazine covers a neglected period of transition in the evolution of modernism. Through his editorial n° 4 policy and a susceptible interpretation of the Zeitgeist, Lehmann voices the particular torments of his generation, too young to have participated in - 2011 the First World War, but deeply affected by it.
    [Show full text]
  • VICTORIAN LEGACY CONFERENCE Organized by Professor Martin HEWITT All Saints College, University of LEEDS, 11-13 July 2005
    VICTORIAN LEGACY CONFERENCE Organized by Professor Martin HEWITT All Saints College, University of LEEDS, 11-13 July 2005 * (Session : The Victorians in the 20th century) * Françoise BORT Université Paris-Est Victorian Legacy: the Lehmanns' Instructions for Use. (Tuesday, July 12th, 2005) The Lehmann siblings, Rosamond (born in 1901) and John (born in 1907), have always boasted their illustrious Victorian literary and artistic ancestry as descendants of William and Robert Chambers. The Chambers brothers have left their hallmark in the history of publishing, not only for their companionship with Dickens or Wilkie Collins among others, but also for their own entrepreneurial achievements. They counted authors like Thackeray and Robert Browning among their closest friends, launched the Edinburgh Journal and became part and parcel of Victorian letters and intellectual life. In fact, their lives and careers display but faint resemblances with John Lehmann’s beginnings as an editor. Unlike the self-made and self-taught Chambers, John was educated at Eton and Trinity College (Cambridge), and then worked for the Hogarth Press in 1931 and 1932 before he founded his own magazine New Writing in 1936. Rosamond, for her part, became famous almost overnight in April 1927, as the author of Dusty Answer1. The novel triggered one of the most resounding literary scandals in the 1920s and came to be considered as an epitome of the Zeitgeist. Above all, John and Rosamond Lehmann had in common a profound interest in emerging artistic expression, which makes it all the more surprising to see them recalling their Victorian ancestors whenever they tackled the subject of their own commitment to the craft of letters.
    [Show full text]
  • The Labour Party and the Idea of Citizenship, C. 193 1-1951
    The Labour Party and the Idea of Citizenship, c. 193 1-1951 ABIGAIL LOUISA BEACH University College London Thesis presented for the degree of PhD University of London June 1996 I. ABSTRACT This thesis examines the development and articulation of ideas of citizenship by the Labour Party and its sympathizers in academia and the professions. Setting this analysis within the context of key policy debates the study explores how ideas of citizenship shaped critiques of the relationships between central government and local government, voluntary groups and the individual. Present historiographical orthodoxy has skewed our understanding of Labour's attitude to society and the state, overemphasising the collectivist nature and centralising intentions of the Labour party, while underplaying other important ideological trends within the party. In particular, historical analyses which stress the party's commitment from the 1930s to achieving the transition to socialism through a strategy of planning, (of industrial development, production, investment, and so on), have generally concluded that the party based its programme on a centralised, expert-driven state, with control removed from the grasp of the ordinary people. The re-evaluation developed here questions this analysis and, fundamentally, seeks to loosen the almost overwhelming concentration on the mechanisms chosen by the Labour for the implementation of policy. It focuses instead on the discussion of ideas that lay behind these policies and points to the variety of opinions on the meaning and implications of social and economic planning that surfaced in the mid-twentieth century Labour party. In particular, it reveals considerable interest in the development of an active and participatory citizenship among socialist thinkers and politicians, themes which have hitherto largely been seen as missing elements in the ideas of the interwar and immediate postwar Labour party.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rhodesian Crisis in British and International Politics, 1964
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Birmingham Research Archive, E-theses Repository THE RHODESIAN CRISIS IN BRITISH AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, 1964-1965 by CARL PETER WATTS A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham For the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY School of Historical Studies The University of Birmingham April 2006 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis uses evidence from British and international archives to examine the events leading up to Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) on 11 November 1965 from the perspectives of Britain, the Old Commonwealth (Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), and the United States. Two underlying themes run throughout the thesis. First, it argues that although the problem of Rhodesian independence was highly complex, a UDI was by no means inevitable. There were courses of action that were dismissed or remained under explored (especially in Britain, but also in the Old Commonwealth, and the United States), which could have been pursued further and may have prevented a UDI.
    [Show full text]
  • The Shrewsbury Pickets, Political Policing and the State a Summary of State Involvement Into the Production of the Documentary – the Red Under the Bed
    The Shrewsbury pickets, political policing and the state A summary of state involvement into the production of the documentary – The Red Under the Bed Eveline Lubbers, PhD March 2021 Report Cover Photograph: March past the Shrewsbury Court 1973 where 24 building workers were indicted on conspiracy charges arising from picketing during the building workers strike of 1972. Ricky Tomlinson (carrying the Building Workers Charter – Kill the Lump placard ) and Des Warren (Right) were jailed later and became know as the Shrewsbury 2. Peter Arkell / reportdigital PUBLIC INTEREST LAW CENTRE | THE SHREWSBURY PICKETS, POLITICAL POLICING AND THE STATE Introduction On Tuesday 23rd March 2021 the Court of Appeal, The case London made the following judgement in the case of our clients Ricky Tomlinson, Arthur Murray1 and Destruction of evidence: The Judgement from the the ‘Shrewsbury 24.’ Court found that the destruction of the original statements together with the fact that the “ It follows that under Ground 1, the convictions of destruction was not disclosed, was enough to render all the appellants are unsafe. Their appeals are the trial unfair and the convictions unsafe. The allowed and all the verdicts in relation to them are number of original statements destroyed was quashed.” (pt.99) significant. The Court found that if their destruction been disclosed it would have given the parties at the The convictions of the ‘Shrewsbury 24’ were original trial an opportunity to deal with the issue quashed. They are unsafe, and they walked from the properly. The Court accepted this. court – as they have always been - innocent men. It is important to note that the statements were They are however victims of police corruption, they destroyed rather than lost.
    [Show full text]
  • Somerville College Report 12 13 Somerville College Report 12 13
    Somerville College Report 12 13 Somerville College Report 12 13 Somerville College Oxford OX2 6HD Telephone 01865 270600 www.some.ox.ac.uk Exempt charity number 1139440. Oct 2013 Somerville College Report 12 13 Somerville College Contents Visitor, Principal, Academic Report Fellows, Lecturers, Examination Results, 2012-2013 114 Staff 3 Prizes 117 Students Entering The Year in Review College 2012 120 Principal’s Report 10 Somerville Association Fellows’ Activities 16 Officers and Committee 124 Report on Junior Somerville Development Research Fellowships 30 Board Members 127 J.C.R. Report 34 M.C.R. Report 36 Notices Library Report 37 Legacies Update 130 Report from the Events: Dates for the Diary 132 Director of Development 42 Members’ Notes President’s Report 48 Somerville Senior Members’ Fund 50 Life Before Somerville: Suzanne Heywood (Cook, 1987) 51 Gaudies and Year Reunions 58 Members’ News and Publications 61 Marriages 76 This Report is edited by Liz Cooke (Tel. 01865 270632; email Births 77 [email protected]) and Amy Crosweller. Deaths 78 Obituaries 80 Visitor, Principal, Fellows, Lecturers, Staff | 3 Sarah Jane Gurr, MA, (BSc, ARCS, Manuele Gragnolati, MA, (Laurea Visitor, PhD Lond, DIC), Daphne Osborne in lettere Classiche, Pavia, PhD Fellow, Professor of Plant Sciences, Columbia, DEA Paris), Reader in Tutor in Biological Sciences Italian Literature, Tutor in Italian Principal, (until January 2013) Annie Sutherland, MA, DPhil, (MA Richard Stone, MA, DPhil, FIMechE, Camb), Rosemary Woolf Fellow, Fellows, CEng, Professor
    [Show full text]
  • ©2013 Tal Zalmanovich ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
    ©2013 Tal Zalmanovich ALL RIGHTS RESERVED SHARING A LAUGH: SITCOMS AND THE PRODUCTION OF POST-IMPERIAL BRITAIN, 1945-1980 by TAL ZALMANOVICH A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in History Written under the direction of Prof. Bonnie Smith And Approved by ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- New Brunswick, New Jersey May, 2013 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Sharing a Laugh: Sitcoms and the Production of Post-Imperial Britain, 1945-1980 By Tal Zalmanovich Dissertation Director: Bonnie Smith Sharing a Laugh examines the social and cultural roles of television situation comedy in Britain between 1945 and 1980. It argues that an exploration of sitcoms reveals the mindset of postwar Britons and highlights how television developed both as an industry and as a public institution. This research demonstrates how Britain metamorphosed in this period from a welfare state with an implicit promise to establish a meritocratic and expert-based society, into a multiracial, consumer society ruled by the market. It illustrates how this turnabout of British society was formulated, debated, and shaped in British sitcoms. This dissertation argues that both democratization (resulting from the expansion of the franchise after World War I) and decolonization in the post-World War II era, established culture as a prominent political space in which interaction and interconnection between state and society took place. Therefore, this work focuses on culture and on previously less noticed parties to the negotiation over power in society such as, media institutions, media practitioners, and their audiences.
    [Show full text]
  • Appendix A: List of Cabinet Ministers, 1945-51
    Appendix A: List of Cabinet Ministers, 1945-51 Prime Minister and Minister of Defence C. R. Attlee Lord President and Leader of the Commons Herbert Morrison Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin Lord Privy Seal Arthur Greenwood Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Dalton President of the Board of Trade Sir Stafford Cripps Lord Chancellor Lord Jowitt First Lord of the Admiralty A. V. Alexander Home Secretary J. Chuter Ede Dominions Secretary and Leader of the Lords Viscount Addison Secretary for India and Burma Lord Pethick-Lawrence Colonial Secretary G. H. Hall Secretary for War J. J. Lawson Secretary for Air Viscount Stansgate Secretary for Scotland Joseph Westwood Minister of Labour and National Service G. A. Isaacs Minister of Fuel and Power Emanuel Shinwell Minister of Education Ellen Wilkinson Minister of Health Aneurin Bevan Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Tom Williams Changes in 1946: On 4 Oct A. V. Alexander became Minister without Portfolio in preparation for becoming Minister of Defence when the new legislation concerning the post had been enacted. This he was able to do on 20 Dec. But on the earlier date the three Service Ministers (Admiralty, War and Air) were all excluded from the Cabinet. On 4 Oct A. Creech Jones succeeded G. H. Hall as Colonial Secretary. Changes in 1947: On the death of Ellen Wilkinson, George Tomlinson became Minister of Education on 10 Feb. On 17 Apr Arthur Greenwood became Minister without Portfolio and Lord Inman succeeded him as Lord Privy Seal; Lord Pethick-Lawrence retired and was succeeded by Lord Listowel. On 7 July the Dominions Office was renamed the Commonwealth Relations Office.
    [Show full text]
  • Catz-The-Year-2010.Pdf
    Catz Year 2010_v4 colour change:Catz Year 2007a 28/1/11 11:16 Page c The Year St Catherine’s College . Oxford 2010 Catz Year 2010_v4 colour change:Catz Year 2007a 28/1/11 11:16 Page d Master and Fellows 2010 MASTER RobertALeese, MA (PhD Durh) Marc Lackenby, MA (PhD Camb) Peter P Edwards, MA (BSc, PhD Christoph Reisinger, (Dipl Linz, Professor Roger W Fellow by Special Election in Tutor in Pure Mathematics Salf), FRS Dr phil Heidelberg) Ainsworth, MA, DPhil, FRAeS Mathematics Leathersellers’ Fellow Professor of Inorganic Chemistry Tutor in Mathematics Director of the Smith Institute Professor of Mathematics (Leave M10-T11) FELLOWS Timothy J Bayne, (BA Otago, Sudhir Anand, MA, DPhil Louise L Fawcett, MA, DPhil (BA Marc E Mulholland, MA (BA, Patrick S Grant, MA, DPhil (BEng PhD Arizona) Tutor in Economics Lond) MA, PhD Belf) Nott) FREng Tutor in Philosophy Harold Hindley Fellow Tutor in Politics Wolfson Fellow Cookson Professor of Materials Professor of Quantitative Wilfrid Knapp Fellow Tutor in History Robert E Mabro, CBE, MA (BEng Economic Analysis (Leave M10-T11) Dean Justine N Pila, MA (BA, LLB, PhD Alexandria, MSc Lond) (Leave M10) Melb) Fellow by Special Election Susan C Cooper, MA (BA Collby Gavin Lowe, MA, MSc, DPhil Tutor in Law Richard J Parish, MA, DPhil (BA Maine, PhD California) Tutor in Computer Science College Counsel Kirsten E Shepherd-Barr, MA, Newc) Professor of Experimental Physics Professor of Computer Science DPhil (Grunnfag Oslo, BA Yale) Tutor in French (Leave T11) Bart B van Es, (BA, MPhil, PhD Tutor in English Philip
    [Show full text]
  • Lehmann, John (1907-1987) by Craig Kaczorowski
    Lehmann, John (1907-1987) by Craig Kaczorowski Encyclopedia Copyright © 2015, glbtq, Inc. Entry Copyright © 2010 glbtq, Inc. Reprinted from http://www.glbtq.com John Lehmann was one of the most distinguished and discerning British men of letters of the mid-twentieth century. Renowned as a poet, novelist, critic, memoirist, and biographer, he wrote more than twenty-five books. However, it is as an editor and publisher that Lehmann is perhaps most highly esteemed, beginning with New Writing (and its associated titles), a pioneering biannual periodical that he edited from 1936 to 1946, and which featured works from such notable writers as Christopher Isherwood and Stephen Spender, among many others. Lehmann also edited the popular Penguin New Writing series of paperbacks from 1946 to 1950. He was also the managing director of Leonard and Virginia Woolf's legendary Hogarth Press, and founded his own publishing house, John Lehmann, Ltd. He re-launched the venerable publication The London Magazine in 1954, aimed at a "public interested in serious literature," where he remained as editor until 1961. While his three volumes of memoirs, published between 1955 and 1966, are mostly reticent about his sexuality, Lehmann's 1976 book, In the Purely Pagan Sense, provides a revealing and valuable portrait of gay life in England and pre-war Germany, written in the form of a novel. Lehmann also published several volumes of his own poetry, as well as acclaimed biographies of Virginia Woolf, Edward Lear, and Rupert Brooke. As a gay man, Lehmann once observed that he was "always looking for the friend who will give me the direct, warm and natural, entirely loyal relationship that I dream about." He was never entirely successful, however, in finding such a relationship.
    [Show full text]
  • Political Economy and Constitutional Reform Hearings
    POLITICAL ECONOMY AND CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM HEARINGS BEFORE THE JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE CONGRESS OF TUE UNITED STATES NINETY-SEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION PART 1 NOVEMBER 9, 17, 18, AND DECEMBER 16, 1982 Printed for the use of the Joint Economic Committee U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 14-523 0 WASHINGTON: 1983 JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE [Created pursuant to sec. 5(a) of Public Law 304, 79th Cong.] HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SENATE HENRY S. REUSS, Wisconsin, Chairman ROGER W. JEPSEN, Iowa, Vice Chairman RICHARD BOLLING, Missouri WILLIAM V. ROTH, JR., Delaware LEE H. HAMILTON, Indiana JAMES ABDNOR, South Dakota GILLIS W. LONG, Louisiana STEVEN D. SYMMS, Idaho PARREN J. MITCHELL, Maryland PAULA HAWKINS, Florida AUGUSTUS F. HAWKINS, California MACK MATTINGLY, Georgia CLARENCE J. BROWN, Ohio LLOYD BENTSEN, Texas MARGARET M. HECKLER, Massachusetts WILLIAM PROXMIRE, Wisconsin JOHN H. ROUSSELOT, California EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts CHALMERS P. WYLIE, Ohio PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland JAMEs K. GALBRAIrH, Executive Director BRUCE R. BARTmrr, Deputy Director (H) FOREWORD By Hon. Henry S. Reuss, Chairman The Joint Economic Committee's hearings on Political Economy and Constitutional Reform, along with the papers and other mate- rial published in the Appendix, contain the observations and recommendations of some of the most thoughtful critics of the American political system today. During three days of hearings in November 1982, the Committee brought together more than a dozen academics, journalists, and former government officials and lawmakers to discuss how we could improve the performance of our political system, and the performance of our economy, by making changes in the structure of our government and, if necessary, in our Constitution.
    [Show full text]
  • The Religious Mind of Mrs Thatcher
    The Religious Mind of Mrs Thatcher Antonio E. Weiss June 2011 The religious mind of Mrs Thatcher 2 ------------------------------------------- ABSTRACT Addressing a significant historical and biographical gap in accounts of the life of Margaret Thatcher, this paper focuses on the formation of Mrs Thatcher’s religious beliefs, their application during her premiership, and the reception of these beliefs. Using the previously unseen sermon notes of her father, Alfred Roberts, as well as the text of three religious sermons Thatcher delivered during her political career and numerous interviews she gave speaking on her faith, this paper suggests that the popular view of Roberts’ religious beliefs have been wide of the mark, and that Thatcher was a deeply religious politician who took many of her moral and religious beliefs from her upbringing. In the conclusion, further areas for research linking Thatcher’s faith and its political implications are suggested. Throughout this paper, hyperlinks are made to the Thatcher Foundation website (www.margaretthatcher.org) where the sermons, speeches, and interviews that Margaret Thatcher gave on her religious beliefs can be found. The religious mind of Mrs Thatcher 3 ------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION ‘The fundamental reason of being put on earth is so to improve your character that you are fit for the next world.’1 Margaret Thatcher on Today BBC Radio 4 6 June 1987 Every British Prime Minister since the sixties has claimed belief in God. This paper will focus on just one – Margaret Thatcher. In essence, five substantive points are argued here which should markedly alter perceptions of Thatcher in both a biographical and a political sense.
    [Show full text]