Margaret Thatcher
The Authorized Biography, Volume One: Not For Turning
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
'One of the best political biographies I have ever read' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
Not For Turning is the first volume of Charles Moore's authorized biography of Margaret Thatcher, the longest serving Prime Minister of the twentieth century and one of the most influential political figures of the postwar era.
Charles Moore's biography of Margaret Thatcher, published after her death on 8 April 2013, immediately supercedes all earlier books written about her. At the moment when she becomes a historical figure, this book also makes her into a three dimensional one for the first time. It gives unparalleled insight into her early life and formation, especially through her extensive correspondence with her sister, which Moore is the first author to draw on. It recreates brilliantly the atmosphere of British politics as she was making her way, and takes her up to what was arguably the zenith of her power, victory in the Falklands. (This volume ends with the Falklands Dinner in Downing Street in November 1982.) Moore is clearly an admirer of his subject, but he does not shy away from criticising her or identifying weaknesses and mistakes where he feels it is justified. Based on unrestricted access to all Lady Thatcher's papers, unpublished interviews with her and all her major colleagues, this is the indispensable, fully rounded portrait of a towering figure of our times.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Moore (Margaret Thatcher: At Her Zenith) depicts the final decades of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's life, including her third consecutive general election victory in 1987 and the intraparty discord that led to her ouster as Conservative Party leader in 1990, in this impressive conclusion to his multivolume authorized biography. Moore presents Thatcher's last years in power thematically, analyzing the prime minister's beliefs and actions on the AIDS crisis; climate change (according to Moore, Thatcher did "more than any other non-American to encourage the United States towards a global, well-funded approach to climate change"); the democratization of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany; the poll tax; and the debate over England's entry into the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, among other issues. Though Moore handily dissects these political matters, his narrative structure occasionally obfuscates their interdependence as well as the wobbly nature of Thatcher's popularity at the time. The chapters depicting her fall from power, however, are expertly wrought. Moore concludes with a portrait of Thatcher's long health decline in her post Downing Street years. Drawing on primary historical documents as well as firsthand interviews with key players in Thatcher's personal and political lives, Moore delivers a frank and weighty testament to the impact of a stateswoman whose "vices were inseparable from her virtues."
