Year: 2023
Type: book-review
Abstract: The Haldanes have some claim to being Scotland's most influential family of the past century.The eminence was summed up in the sub-title of the previous book in which Richard McLauchlan was involvedthe biography 1 by John Campbell and McLauchlan of Richard Burdon Haldane (1856-1928), 'the forgotten statesman who shaped modern Britain'.As McLauchlan explains in this new work, from that Liberal politician to the second half of the twentieth century the family covered a vast range of ideas, technological innovation, and public importance: 'politics, philosophy, science, literature, defence, law, education, and agriculture' (p7).The family was also part of a social elite, exercising this influence through 'social networks [which] read like a Who's Who of their age'.McLauchlan's writing is lucid and witty, and is based on impressive new scholarship, not only in publications and unpublished papers by the family, but also in his recent interviews with its latest members.The question which the sheer extent and thoroughness of his work then raises is whether this family's mode of distinction belongs firmly to the past.The book's main focus is on three generations, almost all of whom lived lengthy and persistently active lives.The first is that of Richard Burdon (as an author known as R.B. Haldane), along with his siblings, notably his brother John Scott (J.S. Haldane) and their sister Elizabeth.These were born in the third quarter of the nineteenth century and flourished well into the period between the world wars.The second is the children of that generation, who were born at the turn of the twentieth century and who were active into the 1960s and later.The third contributed to shaping the enormous transformations of the second half of the twentieth century.Although McLauchlan encompasses an extensive selection of family members in each of these periods, the fullest material is on eight.In the first group, there are Richard, John and Elizabeth.From the second are John's children John Burdon Sanderson (J.B.S. Haldane) and Naomi Mitchison, and also their cousins Graeme and Archie (A.R.B.Haldane), the children of a fourth member of the first generation (William, who was a lawyer
Source: Scottish Affairs
Author: Lindsay Paterson
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4376118030