Margaret Thatcher Volume Two: The Iron Lady

Description

The second volume of the epic biography shorlisted for the Orwell Prize and hailed as 'much the best book written about Lady Thatcher' (Daily Telegraph) The first volume of John Campbell's biography of Margaret Thatcher was described by Frank Johnson in the Daily Telegraph as 'much the best book yet written about Lady Thatcher'. That volume, The Grocer's Daughter, described Mrs Thatcher's childhood and early career up until the 1979 General Election which carried her into Downing Street. This second volume covers the whole eleven and a half years of her momentous premiership. Thirteen years after her removal from power, this is the first comprehensive and fully researched study of the Thatcher Government from its hesitant beginning to its dramatic end. Campbell draws on the mass of memoirs and diaries of Mrs Thatcher's colleagues, aides, advisers and rivals, as well as on original material from the Ronald Reagan archive, shedding fascinating new light on the Reagan-Thatcher 'special relationship', and on dozens of interviews. The Iron Lady will confirm John Campbell's Margaret Thatcher as one of the greatest political biographies of recent times.

John Campbell is the author of biographies of Lloyd George (1977), F. E. Smith (1983), Roy Jenkins (1983), Aneurin Bevan (1986) and Edward Heath (1994), for which he won the NCR Award. Margaret Thatcher Volume 2- The Iron Lady was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2004.

John Campbell succeeds brilliantly with this second volume of his biography of Britain's first woman prime minister. His account - compelling, often exhilarating and, in its closing pages, genuinely moving - portrays Thatcher's political career as a tragedy worthy of Shakespeare -- John Willman * Financial Times * Anyone who wants to know what really happened between 1979 and 1990 should read this book -- John Rentoul * Daily Telegraph * A brilliantly researched, thoroughly sourced version of the most remarkable premiership of our time -- Huw Edwards * Books of the Year, The Times * 'An enormously useful achievement... every twist and turn of her political life is here' * The Times * 'I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and indeed arguing with it, because it has reminded me why so many of us would never have wanted her to give up' -- William Hague * Daily Telegraph *