{"product_id":"the-insatiable-earl-a-life-of-john-montagu-fourth-earl-of-sandwich-17181792","title":"The Insatiable Earl: A Life of John Montagu  Fourth Earl of Sandwich 1718-1792","description":"\u003cp\u003eHere is a book that is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of Englands navy and of the eighteenth century in general. Its thorough scholarship does not in the least impede  but rather facilitates  its readability. It is masterly without being didactic. No historical figure of eighteenth-century England has been more grossly misrepresented than the inventor of our favorite fast food. The stereotype is well known: an unscrupulous man of pleasure whose mistress  a courtesan  was murdered on the steps of the Admiralty  inside which her lover was carelessly mismanaging the War of American Independence. It is refreshing to read a biography that explodes this long-accepted view. Martha Ray was not a courtesan but rather the Joan Sutherland of her day  whose rendering of \"I know that my Redeemer liveth\" was admired by the most discriminating critics. It was  appropriately  outside Covent Garden after attending a performance (not outside the Admiralty) that she was murdered by an unhinged admirer; she had lived for many years with and had borne children to John  fourth Earl of Sandwich. As to his mismanagement of naval affairs  Nicholas Rodger  the outstanding historian of the eighteenth-century navy  demonstrates in this brilliant and extremely readable book that as First Lord of the Admiralty he was in a class by himself. This was by no means his only distinction. As a diplomat he displayed extraordinary powers and won from foreign statesmen the admiration and trust that his own countrymen then and subsequently have largely denied him. As a parliamentary manager of the constituencies that he was in a position to influence  he shared an energy  skill and wonderful tact in handling all sorts and conditions of men - qualities that were acknowledged and praised by his most unrelenting denigrators. As a young man he had been an adventurous traveler with a title to a place in the history of Greek epigraphy. His lifelong passion for music  especially in championing and reviving the then-unfashionable oratorios of Handel  has given him  in the present biographers opinion  his nearest connection to the life of our own time. For it is the special pleasure of this absorbing book that though it is written by one of Englands foremost naval historians  it is not in the least restricted to the dockyards and the quarterdecks of the Georgian navy. The political analysis is subtle  original  and well argued. The intellectual and artistic background is part of a strikingly new view of the tall  lounging figure that surveys us from Gainsboroughs great portrait now in the Maritime Museum. Above all  the human quality of a man whose domestic life was blighted by the madness of a dearly loved wife is brought before us.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44986564214837,"sku":"ByrdShop_0393035875","price":39.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780393035872.jpg?v=1770909494","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-insatiable-earl-a-life-of-john-montagu-fourth-earl-of-sandwich-17181792","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}