Over the course of a distinguished fifty-year career Lord Lansdowne served as Governor-General of Canada, Viceroy of India,Secretary of State for War, Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Lords. It was Lansdowne who engineered the crucial changes in British foreign policy and the burden of Britains imperial commitments, led the House of Lords through one of the most divisive periods of modern times and at the end of the First World War, became a figure of notoriety greater than any of the popular leaders of the day. His life illustrates the challenges his class had to face at this time and acts as a prism through which to view the transition of Britain from a global force to a much reduced power. Simon Kerry shows that many of the issues Lansdowne faced are still important today and that his career profoundly affected the course of modern history.
