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Book Review;19th-century Britishpolitics;Third man 书评;19世纪英国政坛;第三人; John Bright: Statesman, Orator, Agitator.By BillCash. 《约翰布莱特：政治家, 演说家, 改革推动者》;比尔凯西。 Bill Cash, a Conservative British backbenchpolitician, has written a book about anotherbackbench politician, who also happens to be anancestor. Mr Cash frets that his great-grandfather s cousin has been forgotten, but he hasn t really. No historian doubts theimportance of John Bright; it is just that he has slipped out of the popular consciousness. 比尔卡什, 这个英国保守党普通议员为另一位普通议员写了一本书, 而其撰写的这个人物恰好是他的一位先人。卡什议员对于人们已经忘却了他的曾祖父的这位表兄感到不快, 但是其实他没有被忘记。 没有任何历史学家会怀疑约翰。布莱特的重要历史地位; 现今他只是从公众的视野中淡出了。 So, for the layman, who was he? The very question, Mr Cash tells us, would haveflabbergasted anyone in the 19th century. In 1878 Punch published a series of cartoons of thethree Britons whom they deemed to be the greatest statesmen of the ageBenjaminDisraeli, William Gladstone and Bright. Born in 1811 and with a political career spanningnearly 50 years as a member of parliament for Durham, Manchester and Birmingham, Brightwould be the one contemporary statesman whose fame and accomplishments transcendedthe age, according to Walter Bagehot, this newspaper s editor from 1860-77. A biographyby G.M. Trevelyan, which came out in 1913, described him as a rare example of the hero aspolitician. | 
