Herbert Samuel: A Political Life

Herbert Samuel’s extraordinarily long political life coincided with the long drawn-out sunset of Liberalism as a dominant political force in Britain. His career in the Liberal Party began in the age of Gladstone and ended in the era of Grimond. At the turn of the century Samuel played a vital role in the formulation of the ‘New Liberalism’, and later helped translate that doctrine into legislation that laid the foundations of the welfare state. He played a central role in the history of Zionism, serving as first British High Commissioner in Palestine from 1920 to 1925. He returned to office in the National Government of 1931, and led the Liberal Party between 1931 and 1935. In later life Samuel won a broad public audience as a philosopher, a respected elder statesman, and a much admired broadcaster. Bernard Wasserstein assesses Samuel’s importance in British politics and in the emergence of the state of Israel. This accessible and scholarly biography, based on extensive research in all the available sources, provides a revealing portrait of a leading twentieth-century statesman.