Impressions of Disraeli: Mythmaking and the History of One Nation Conservatism, 1881-1940

Abstract

In addressing the rise of Disraeli’s global status in the half century that followed his death in 1881, this article draws on a vast corpus of Anglophone biographies, histories, obituaries, paintings, films, and more, to chart the transformation of Disraeli’s political and personal reputation, including his Jewishness, that allowed his supporters (and British Conservatives in particular) to promote Disraeli as a political thinker rather than an opportunist, and invoke this image for their own ends. This was the fundamental basis for those who wished to shape Disraeli’s legacy into a particular, simplified form – that of the founder and intellectual lodestar of a strand of conservative thought and British Conservative politics now titled ‘One Nation Conservatism’.