Smith, Paul 1937-

PERSONAL:

Born 1937.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Cambridge University Press, 40 W. 20th St., New York, NY 10011-4221.

CAREER:

Historian and writer. Former professor of history, University of Southampton, Southampton, England.

WRITINGS:

Disraelian Conservatism and Social Reform, University of Toronto Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1967.

Disraeli: A Brief Life, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor) Government and the Armed Forces in Britain, 1856-1990, Hambledon Press (London, England), 1996.

(Editor, with Charles Richmond) The Self-Fashioning of Disraeli, 1818-1851, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1998.

(Editor) Walter Bagehot, Bagehot: The English Constitution, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS:

Paul Smith has contributed to the study of nineteenth-century England, particularly through his work on Victorian-era prime minister Benjamin Disraeli. With Disraeli: A Brief Life and The Self- Fashioning of Disraeli, 1818-1851, Smith has concentrated his focus on the statesman's formative years in which Disraeli struggled with his Jewish heritage and his ambition to achieve fame in some field of endeavor. In an English Historical Review piece on Disraeli, Angus Hawkins noted: "Brief does not, in any sense, denote superficial." Hawkins called Smith's work "a successful reworking of Disraeli's portrait," adding: "For Smith, Disraeli's ideas matter. They gave coherence to a colourful career of extravagant self-advancement." Canadian Journal of History correspondent Paul T. Phillips wrote of The Self-Fashioning of Disraeli, 1818-1851: "Those interested in Benjamin Disraeli's complex personality will find this collective dissection compelling reading."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Canadian Journal of History, December, 2000, Paul T. Phillips, review of The Self-Fashioning of Disraeli, 1818-1851, p. 575.

English Historical Review, July, 1969, H.J. Hanham, review of Disraelian Conservatism and Social Reform, pp. 596-598; November, 1998, Angus Hawkins, review of Disraeli: A Brief Life, p. 1346; June, 2000, Edgar Feuchtwanger, review of The Self-Fashioning of Disraeli, 1818-1851, p. 752.

Journal of Modern History, June, 1969, Trygve R. Tholfsen, review of Disraelian Conservatism and Social Reform, pp. 245-247.

Times Literary Supplement, October 18, 1996, Peter Ghosh, "A Ghostly Residue," p. 30.

Victorian Studies, autumn, 2000, Stanley Weintraub, review of The Self-Fashioning of Disraeli, 1818- 1851, p. 128.