Of the quartet of political giants who created Britain’s welfare state—Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Henry Asquith, and Richard Haldane—only the latter has been neglected by historians. The last major study of his career appeared over fifty years ago, and yet a case can be made that Haldane was a major architect of the changes that began the transformation of Britain into a modern state.

John Campbell, a student of economic history and the co-founder of Campbell-Lutyens, an international equity fund, sets out to do justice to Haldane’s role in the history of modern Britain. His book is an exhaustive study of various aspects of Haldane’s career: his interest in philosophy; his contributions to the modernization of the British educational system; his role in the constitutional history of Canada; and, most importantly, the military reforms he carried out at the War Office in the years before World War I. The book is long, backed by a close study of Haldane’s papers, and fortified with seventy-one pages of notes. And yet it is not a fully satisfying work.

Instead of a formal biography, Campbell has opted for an organizational structure that at times is frustrating and often repetitive. The author constantly uses the phrase “we will explore this topic further in a later chapter,” which is never a good idea, especially in a biography. Rather than treat Haldane’s life chronologically, Campbell opts for a thematic approach, with long chapters on Haldane’s philosophical investigations, his interest in law reform