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Eden
  • Published: 31 May 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446476956
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 784
Categories:

Eden

The Life and Times of Anthony Eden First Earl of Avon, 1897-1977




A masterly biography which - through hitherto unseen primary material, new evidence and numerous interviews - reveals Eden in all his complexity.

Anthony Eden, who served as both Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, was one of the central political figures of the twentieth century. He had good looks, charm, a Military Cross from the Great War, an Oxford first and a secure parliamentary constituency from his mid-twenties. He was Foreign Secretary at the age of 38, and the first British statesman to meet Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. Eden's dramatic resignation from Neville Chamberlain's Cabinet in 1938, outlined here in the fullest detail yet, made an international impact.

This ground-breaking book examines his controversial life and tells the inside story of the Munich crisis (1938), the Geneva Conference (1954), Eden's battles with Churchill over the modernisation of the post-war Conservative Party and his rivalry with Butler and Macmillan in the early 1950s, culminating in a fascinating analysis of the Suez crisis.

  • Published: 31 May 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446476956
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 784
Categories:

About the author

D R Thorpe

D.R. Thorpe was born in 1943 and educated at Fettes and Selwyn College, Cambridge. His work on the constitutional history and politics of the twentieth century has made him one of Britain's most respected historians. His most recent book, Supermac, completes a triptych of biographies of twentieth-century Prime Ministers, his previous subjects being Alec Douglas-Home and Anthony Eden. He has also written about Selwyn Lloyd, Austen Chamberlain, Lord Curzon and Lord Butler. Thorpe is a senior member of Brasenose College, Oxford, and has been a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and of St Antony's College, Oxford.

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Praise for Eden

[A] biography of almost unqualified excellence.

Roy Hattersley, New Statesman

A biography of almost unqualified excellence...comprehensive, authoritative, balanced and invariably (throughout more than 600 pages) readable...In a year or more of notable biographies, there has been nothing to touch it...as told by D.R. Thorpe it is a history of exceptionally high quality.

Roy Hattersley, New Statesman

Sympathetic and authoraitative...This biography, while solidly based on a myriad primary sources and a comprehensive range of secondary ones, flows easily with many nice touches...easily the best friendly account.

INA GILMOUR, FINANCIAL TIMES

The best-life of this ill-starred politician that we are likely to get...the skilful way he has paced his narrative...vivid...some of the disclosures are pure, unalloyed joy...Thorpe has painted a sympathetic enough portrait but he has not tried to blot out all the warts...excellent.

ANTHONY HOWARD, SUNDAY TIMES