Baden-Powell (book)
 Cover of the Yale edition | |
| Author | Tim Jeal |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Biography |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Publisher | Hutchinson (first edition) |
Publication date | 1989 |
| Media type | |
| ISBN | 0-09-170670-X (Hutchinson edition) |
| OCLC | 20850522 |
| 369.43/092 B 20 | |
| LC Class | DA68.32.B2 J43 1989 |
Baden-Powell is a 1989 biography of Robert Baden-Powell by Tim Jeal. Tim Jeal's work, researched over five years, was first published by Hutchinson in the UK and Yale University Press . It was reviewed by the New York Times.[1] As James Casada writes in his review for Library Journal, it is "a balanced, definitive assessment which so far transcends previous treatments as to make them almost meaningless."[2]
Although Jeal's Baden-Powell "transcends previous treatments" and is exceptionally well referenced, as a "balanced, definitive assessment" it has come under criticism. Academic books and articles on Baden-Powell had become critical and negative since the 1960s culminating in Michael Rosenthal's 1986 The Character Factory.
Although Jeal's earlier biography of David Livingstone had been highly critical, establishing that he had only made a single convert and had failed in many important geographical objectives, Jeal defended Baden-Powell against accusations of racism, militarism, and of having starved the Africans at Mafeking and stolen the basic idea for the Boy Scouts. Jeal relied on material from the archives of established scout organizations and from Baden-Powell's own writings, diaries and correspondence. He also interviewed Baden-Powell's daughters and traced along with Scouting colleagues, his last serving private secretary and many members of his domestic staff still alive in the 1980s. His use of the letters written to Olave Baden-Powell by her favourite niece enable him to write in detail about Baden-Powell's relationship with his wife and with his three children.
Particular attention in reviews has been given to Jeal's analysis of whether Baden-Powell was a suppressed homosexual. Nelson Block states "While the professional history community generally considers Jeal's conclusions on this topic to be speculative, the mainstream press seems to have taken them as fact". He then notes that there has been no published scholarly critique of Jeal.[3] But Jeal devotes the whole of Chapter Three "Men's Man" to the subject of his sexuality and quotes from Baden-Powell's own account of his dreams and also considers many other intimate papers.
Content
The book comprises 18 introductory pages, and 670 editorial pages. It has 19 chapters, covering Baden-Powell's life from birth and home, to his Indian and African periods, the work he did on Scouting for boys, and his marriage. The text is encyclopedically referenced with over 1000 notes.
Editions
- Jeal, Tim (1989). Baden-Powell. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-170670-X.
- Jeal, Tim (March 1990). The Boy-Man, The life of Lord Baden-Powell. New York: William Morrow & Company. ISBN 0-688-04899-4.
- Jeal, Tim (1991). Baden-Powell. London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-5026-1.
- Jeal, Tim (August 2001). Baden-Powell. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09103-6.
- Jeal, Tim (December 2007). Baden-Powell, Gründer der Pfadfinder (in German) (translation by Cornelius Hartz ed.). Wesel: Von der Linden-Verlag.
References
- ↑ Steiner, Zara (1 April 1990). "There Is a Brotherhood of Boys". The New York Times.
- ↑ Casada, James A. (1 March 1990). "The Boy-Man: The Life of Lord Baden-Powell (review)". Library Journal.
- ↑ Block, Nelson R.; Proctor, Tammy M., eds. (2009). Scouting Frontiers: Youth and the Scout Movement’s First Century. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 6. ISBN 1-4438-0450-9.
However,in the almost twenty years since he presented his case, not a single published scholarly critique of his argument has been presented, though it begs for one.