Don't be silly; a blog could not possibly do justice to this masterpiece. You'll be blogging Shakespeare next, and any way how come you haven't read it before?
You see it in Felix Holt, but here it is more subtle: the way the plot doesn't work in a linear fashion, but rather is a web of influences and linkages. It would probably be true to say that this book couldn't be written now since editors would stamp hard on the authorial comments. Yet they, with the thoughts of so many of the characters, serve to offer a deep insight into 19th century rural life. I want to tell my lecturer in rural history that this is a first class primary source. It has everything: reaction to the Reform Act, agricultural reform, absent clergy and the absolute domination of money
I am an historian who has recently published two books on the story of British manufacturing. Here are my thoughts on a number of other topics including my former roles as chair of the Lincoln Book Festival and chair of Lincoln Drill Hall. My other blogs http://williamsmithwilliams.co.uk talk about my biography of the man who discovered Charlotte Brontë, and http://www.philwilliamswriter.co.uk about my books on how the army was supplied in the world wars.
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Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Thursday, 8 October 2009
The deficit
In a much earlier blog I observed that what had happened was that public borrowing, which had previously been used to power the economy through recessions, had been replaced by private borrowing on an unprecedented scale. The dramatic reduction in the availability of credit has through the consequent recession caused a very large number of borrowers to default. The anticipation of this stripped banks' balance sheets of value sending them cap in hand to government who have poured in money like water. Government now wrings its hands at the deficit it is running and its own need for borrowing.
I can't help feeling that an economy which places sensible controls of private borrowing but which is realistic about the need for cyclical public borrowing is likely to end up healthier than the free for all which has got us into this very much larger mess.
I can't help feeling that an economy which places sensible controls of private borrowing but which is realistic about the need for cyclical public borrowing is likely to end up healthier than the free for all which has got us into this very much larger mess.