I think if you gatherall the evidence that I've learned about the life of Wilfred...
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I think if you gather
all the evidence that I've learned about the life of Wilfred Steele
here in America and you put it alongside what we
already knew about him from his time in Liverpool, what emerges is a man with an
incredible gift for reinvention. Every time he seems, despite
the adversity, to land on his feet. And, yet, it's impossible to look
at death certificates for children who faded away
in workhouses, of a wife who dies
in her 20s, abandoned, and not conclude that
what Wilfred Steele's life demonstrates is the flip side
of all of those virtues that the Victorians admired, the virtues of self-help
and inner drive and a determination
to make it in business, because the flip side of
those virtues is ruthlessness. And I think you get that in spades
in the life of Wilfred Steele
all the evidence that I've learned about the life of Wilfred Steele
here in America and you put it alongside what we
already knew about him from his time in Liverpool, what emerges is a man with an
incredible gift for reinvention. Every time he seems, despite
the adversity, to land on his feet. And, yet, it's impossible to look
at death certificates for children who faded away
in workhouses, of a wife who dies
in her 20s, abandoned, and not conclude that
what Wilfred Steele's life demonstrates is the flip side
of all of those virtues that the Victorians admired, the virtues of self-help
and inner drive and a determination
to make it in business, because the flip side of
those virtues is ruthlessness. And I think you get that in spades
in the life of Wilfred Steele
Full Transcript
00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:03.076
I think if you gather
all the evidence that I've learned
00:00:03.076 --> 00:00:06.002
about the life of Wilfred Steele
here in America
00:00:06.002 --> 00:00:09.028
and you put it alongside what we
already knew about him
00:00:09.028 --> 00:00:10.092
from his time in Liverpool,
00:00:10.092 --> 00:00:16.028
what emerges is a man with an
incredible gift for reinvention.
00:00:16.028 --> 00:00:20.024
Every time he seems, despite
the adversity, to land on his feet.
00:00:20.024 --> 00:00:25.024
And, yet, it's impossible to look
at death certificates
00:00:25.024 --> 00:00:28.032
for children who faded away
in workhouses,
00:00:28.032 --> 00:00:31.998
of a wife who dies
in her 20s, abandoned,
00:00:31.998 --> 00:00:33.088
and not conclude that
what Wilfred Steele's life
00:00:33.088 --> 00:00:36.068
demonstrates is the flip side
of all of those virtues
00:00:36.068 --> 00:00:38.024
that the Victorians admired,
00:00:38.024 --> 00:00:41.000
the virtues of self-help
and inner drive
00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:43.052
and a determination
to make it in business,
00:00:43.052 --> 00:00:46.072
because the flip side of
those virtues is ruthlessness.
00:00:46.072 --> 00:00:49.096
And I think you get that in spades
in the life of Wilfred Steele.
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Movie Summary
Historian David Olusoga charts 180 years of British history as lived by the successive inhabitants of a single home in a British city - from its construction to the present day.
