Читать книгу Anglo-American Cultural Studies - Jody Skinner - Страница 97

colonial expansionBenjamin DisraeliDisraeli doesn’t sound like your common English name, and Disraeli wasn’t your common Englishman. His name reveals his Italian-Jewish descent, but his family converted to Christianity when he was young. Disraeli was first elected to the House of CommonsHouse of Commons in his thirties; as Conservative partyConservative party leader and later prime minister he was instrumental in extending the right to vote to the working classworking classes and in passing legislation that improved housing and working conditions for the poor. His greatest triumphs were in foreign policy. Disraeli enhanced Britain’s imperial powerpower, helped Britain control the important trade route through the Suez CanalSuez Canal, and convinced Parliament to declare Queen VictoriaVictoria “Empress of IndiaIndia.” But Disraeli wasn’t only a politician, he was also a novelist and at least at the beginning of his political career was better known in literary and social circles than in political ones. After Disraeli’s death but before the end of the Victorian era, Britain’s foreign policy was characterized by aggressive colonial expansion with “Great Imperialists” like Joseph ChamberlainChamberlain, Joseph and Cecil Rhodes and colonial acquisitions in Rhodesia, South AfricaSouth Africa, and NigeriaNigeria in a “scramble for Africa” among the European powers Britain, FranceFrance, and GermanyGermany. At home in Britain and partly due to some of the results of the Industrial RevolutionIndustrial Revolution – a dramatic rise in population and of the middle classmiddle class – important intellectuals began to look for ways to solve the problems of the rich and the poor.