Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography

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The fighting lasted 74 days. It claimed 649 Argentinian and 255 British soldiers’ lives, as well as those of three Falkland Islanders. It ended on June 14 with Argentina’s total surrender. But Margaret’s parents prized self-reliance. They saved when times were good so that there was enough for when they were bad, and they knew how to make a little go a long way. The Roberts family ran a grocery business, bringing up their two daughters in a flat over the shop. Margaret Roberts attended a local state school and from there won a place at Oxford, where she studied chemistry at Somerville College (1943-47). Her tutor was Dorothy Hodgkin, a pioneer of X-ray crystallography who won a Nobel Prize in 1964. Her outlook was profoundly influenced by her scientific training. British sailors first landed here in 1690, but the islands were only incorporated into the British empire in 1833. The first permanent inhabitants arrived shortly after that.

Absolutely fantastic. I second Michael Barone's review that this is one of the best political biographies ever written. The num The authorized, remarkably evenhanded biography of the grimly divisive, late Iron Lady of Britain…Well balanced. We look forward to the planned sequel.”

European states would keep certain powers, but they’d also be integrated into a single federal structure. In some areas of political life, Brussels, not national parliaments, would have the final say.

Some sources believe that Thatcher wrote at least part of the book at the Manor House Hotel, in Castle Combe, in the Full Glass bar. [12] [13] Reception [ edit ] Published in a single volume for the first time, Margaret Thatcher is the story of her remarkable life told in her own words--the definitive account of an extraordinary woman and consummate politician, bringing together her bestselling memoirs The Downing Street Years and The Path to Power.

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Moore] has discharged the first part of his commission superbly. He has marshalled a huge range of sources, many of them new, without letting himself be swamped… He has spoken to practically everyone who ever had anything to do with her, and interweaves their recollections skilfully to bring out wider themes… If the second volume, charting her mounting hubris and eventual nemesis, maintains this quality it will be a tremendous achievement.”–John Campbell, TheIndependent Thatcher led the Conservatives to a decisive electoral victory in 1979 following a series of major strikes during the previous winter (the so-called “Winter of Discontent”) under the Labour Party government of James Callaghan. As a prime minister representing the newly energetic right wing of the Conservative Party (the “Dries,” as they later called themselves, as opposed to the old-style moderate Tories, or “Wets”), Thatcher advocated greater independence of the individual from the state; an end to allegedly excessive government interference in the economy, including privatization of state-owned enterprises and the sale of public housing to tenants; reductions in expenditures on social services such as health care, education, and housing; limitations on the printing of money in accord with the economic doctrine of monetarism; and legal restrictions on trade unions. The term Thatcherism came to refer not just to these policies but also to certain aspects of her ethical outlook and personal style, including moral absolutism, fierce nationalism, a zealous regard for the interests of the individual, and a combative, uncompromising approach to achieving political goals.