Description
Book SynopsisGoldwin Smith, controversialist, reformer, and prolific journalist, was an early prophet of the British Commonwealth, and one of the first advocates of English-speaking union. Though not a markedly original thinker or political philosopher, he was an intelligent liberal and on many subjects a representative Victorian, who speculated with unflagging interest on the problems of his day. Born and bred in England, domiciled for many years in Canada, and a frequent visitor to the United States, he had numerous friends in all three countries. He was for six years Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, and for two years Professor of English and Constitutional History at Cornell University.
Smith’s ideas, disseminated during his lifetime in more than two hundred journals, reflected strains characteristic of nineteenth-century thought, and in particular the Victorian concern about questions raised by the two great forces of democracy and imperialism. He analysed in lucid
