ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the quiet revaluation of Byrons politics that has taken place over recent years, a revaluation that offers a counterweight to more traditional and more dramatic accounts of Byrons apparent failures and egoism in the political sphere. Recent research into altruism has been helpful for anyone interested in the questions raised by the trajectory of Byrons life, or by attempts to read his actions outside the context of romantically inflated or self-destructive paradigms. In an article in the Guardian newspaper, the political columnist Martin Kettle writes: One of the most valuable virtues in modern politics is the ability to give the impression that one can see the world from the other persons point of view. As Byron was well aware, the self-dedication to Greece always carried with it exposure to the potential absurdity of acting for others. His intervention in the Greek War of Independence has often been derided as merely gestural.
