From Library Journal
The events of September 11 and the war in Afghanistan have again brought attention to Kipling and the themes of imperialism, postcolonialism, and the role of the West in the Middle East. While essentially a Victorian in his values and art, Kipling died in 1936 on the eve of World War II, opposed to fascism and prophesying that the end of the British Empire would bring sectarian strife. During his life he witnessed the pinnacle and decline of the British Empire. While a spokesman for empire, Kipling was always cognizant of the complexity of the "white man's burden." Gilmour, who has written books on the politics of Spain and Lebanon, as well as a biography of Italian novelist Giuseppe di Lampedusa, offers a brief, sympathetic, well-informed, and highly readable account of Kipling. He focuses on Kipling's complex relation to empire, especially as expressed in his stories and poetry. His effort joins Harry Ricketts's recent popular, and more general, Rudyard Kipling. Highly recommended. Thomas L. Cooksey, Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah, GACopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
*Starred Review* For 50 years, Rudyard Kipling projected his political and social views in prose fiction and, more pointedly, in verse. He was a British imperial propagandist but also an artist who took no orders. As Gilmour presents him in a biography focused on his political life, but that cites and evaluates numerous poems and stories, noting their aesthetic qualities as well as their messages, Kipling was the greatest, because he was the most humane, British imperialist and also the empire's great, pessimistic prophet. His early working years in India convinced him that British rule there had to be paternal: guiding but not dominating, helping but not exploiting native peoples. The British in South Africa had similar duties, he thought, and needed also to restrain the Boers, whom he warned would establish a racist regime: apartheid. He despised liberals and socialists because he believed they would dismantle the empire, leaving India to be torn asunder by contending Hindus and Muslims--another accurate forecast. He undermined his own effectiveness with his ideological purity and permanent grudges. Still, as Gilmour makes abundantly clear, he was a major player in the affairs of the mightiest power on Earth, which lost its potency in tandem with his loss of practical influence. A remarkable man, a remarkable book. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
“In his entertaining and sympathetic biography . . . Gilmour portrays Kipling in all his complexity . . . He quietly dismantles the caricature of Kipling as a two-dimensional Victorian chauvinist.” —Alan Riding, The New York Times

“[Gilmour examines] Kipling’s political consciousness . . . more deeply than any writer before him.” —Gregory Feeley, The Philadelphia Inquirer

“[A] formidable study . . . [Gilmour] is superb as a historian and biographer.” —Robert F. Moss, Los Angeles Times Book Review



Book Description
“Readable and reliable . . . [Gilmour’s] assessment of the political background of Kipling’s writings is exemplary.” —Earl L. Dachslager, Houston Chronicle

David Gilmour’s superbly nuanced biography of Rudyard Kipling, now available in paperback, is the first to show how the great writer’s life and work mirrored the trajectory of the British Empire, from its zenith to its final decades. His great poem “Recessional” celebrated Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and his last poems warned of the dangers of Nazism, while Kipling himself, an icon of the empire, was transformed from an apostle of success to a prophet of national decline. As Gilmour makes clear, Kipling’s mysterious and enduring works deeply influenced the way his readers saw both themselves and the British Empire, and they continue to challenge our own generation.



About the Author
David Gilmour is the author of many works of literary and political history, including Curzon: Imperial Statesman (FSG, 2003) and The Last Leopard: A Life of Giuseppe di Lampedusa. He lives in Edinburgh.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Rudyard Kipling was a unique figure in British history, a great writer and a great imperial icon. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature, he added more phrases to the language than any man since Shakespeare, yet he was also the Apostle of the British Empire, a man who incarnated an era for millions of people who did not normally read poetry." "A child of the Victorian age of imperial self-confidence, Kipling lived to see the rise of Hitler threaten his country's existence. The laureate of the Empire at its apogee, he foresaw that its demise would soon follow his death. His great poem 'Recessional' celebrated Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897; his last poems warned of the dangers of Nazism. The trajectory of his life matched the trajectory of the British Empire from its zenith to its final decades. He himself was transformed from the apostle of success to the prophet of national decline, a Cassandra warning of dangers that successive governments refused to face." Previous works on Kipling have focused on his writing and on his domestic life. This is the first book to study his public role, his influence on the way Britons saw both themselves and their Empire. Based on extensive research in Britain and in the under-explored archives of the United States, David Gilmour has produced a fascinating study of a man who embodied the spirit of his country a hundred years ago as closely as Shakespeare had done 300 years before.

FROM THE CRITICS

Book Magazine

It's hard to imagine who reads Kipling (1865-1936) these days, which is sort of a pity, considering his many fine works of fiction, including Kim and The Jungle Book. The problem, of course, is Kipling's politics. He's been damned, a bit hastily, as a misogynist bigot, and he has been dismissed as the great apologist of British imperialism. While most Kipling defenders soft-pedal his jingoism, Gilmour makes Kipling's public life the centerpiece of this biography. The author doesn't prettify his subject, but he does assert Kipling's contribution: He was the most vivid chronicler of the Anglo-Indian experience and the literary voice of the British foot soldier. That in poetry like "If" and "The White Man's Burden" he promulgated a masochistic stoicism and made conquest seem like an act of charity only stamped him as a man of his time. It's this nineteenth-century ideology that Gilmour astutely exhumes, and in doing so, he renders Kipling not necessarily sympathetic, but certainly comprehensible. —Paul Evans

Library Journal

The events of September 11 and the war in Afghanistan have again brought attention to Kipling and the themes of imperialism, postcolonialism, and the role of the West in the Middle East. While essentially a Victorian in his values and art, Kipling died in 1936 on the eve of World War II, opposed to fascism and prophesying that the end of the British Empire would bring sectarian strife. During his life he witnessed the pinnacle and decline of the British Empire. While a spokesman for empire, Kipling was always cognizant of the complexity of the "white man's burden." Gilmour, who has written books on the politics of Spain and Lebanon, as well as a biography of Italian novelist Giuseppe di Lampedusa, offers a brief, sympathetic, well-informed, and highly readable account of Kipling. He focuses on Kipling's complex relation to empire, especially as expressed in his stories and poetry. His effort joins Harry Ricketts's recent popular, and more general, Rudyard Kipling. Highly recommended. Thomas L. Cooksey, Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah, GA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews