Description

Shortlisted for the 2020 ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING

The final part of Charles Moore’s bestselling and definitive biography of Britain’s first female Prime Minister, ‘One of the great biographical achievements of our times’ (Sunday Times)

A TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, SPECTATOR, TELEGRAPH, IRISH TIMES, NEW STATESMAN AND SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR

How did Margaret Thatcher change and divide Britain? How did her model of combative female leadership help shape the way we live now? How did the woman who won the Cold War and three general elections in succession find herself pushed out by her own MPs?
Charles Moore’s full account, based on unique access to Margaret Thatcher herself, her papers and her closest associates, tells the story of her last period in office, her combative retirement and the controversy that surrounded her even in death. It includes the Fall of the Berlin Wall which she had fought for and the rise of the modern EU which she feared. It lays bare her growing quarrels with colleagues and reveals the truth about her political assassination.

Moore’s three-part biography of Britain’s most important peacetime prime minister paints an intimate political and personal portrait of the victories and defeats, the iron will but surprising vulnerability of the woman who dominated in an age of male power. This is the full, enthralling story.

Publisher Review

One of the great biographical achievements of our times -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times * As close as biography can come to being a work of art -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday * Praise for the first two volumes * : * This is a magnificent political biography which takes its place next to Robert Blake's Disraeli and Robert Caro's Lyndon Johnson on the highest level. Outstanding... superb... extraordinarily compelling. -- Philip Hensher * Spectator * Not merely the authorized biography, Moore's is the definitive biography of Thatcher, and perhaps one of the definitive books about Britain in the late twentieth century. -- Anne Applebaum * New York Review of Books * Moore's Margaret Thatcher is one of the truly great biographies. Throughout the three volumes it has been comprehensive and subtle, breaking new ground while being surefooted on familiar terrain. He provides a portrait of Thatcher - her anxiousness and her certainty, her strength and her frailty - that is surprising and fresh while still convincing. This volume completes a historical masterpiece. -- Daniel Finkelstein * The Times * Reviewers are supposed never to use the word "definitive" about a history book or biograph, but with Charles Moore's life of Margaret Thatcher, of which this is the triumphant last volume, one has no other option. ... an absolute masterpiece of the biographer's art. -- Andrew Roberts * Daily Telegraph * Moore has finally completed one of the most thrilling, comprehensive, fair-minded and elegantly written biographies of modern times. It is full of complex argument, and a very large cast, but it is a joy to read. -- Andrew Marr * New Statesman *