The Downing Street Years

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HarperPerennial, 1993 - Biography & Autobiography - 914 pages
"The appearance of Margaret Thatcher's memoirs has been one of the most eagerly awaited publishing events in many years. As this book now shows, rarely has such a sense of anticipation been so amply justified." "The Downing Street Years is, first and foremost, a brilliant first-hand portrayal of the events and personalities of her years in power. She gives riveting accounts of the great and critical moments of her premiership - the three election victories, the Falklands War, the Miners' Strike, the Brighton Bomb, the Westland Affair, her battles abroad with foreign federalists and at home with faint-hearted or misguided ministers. Her judgements of the men and women she has encountered, whether world statesmen or Cabinet colleagues, are completely, sometimes brutally, frank. She is lavish with praise where it is due; devastating in her criticism when it is not. The book ends with an account of her last days which is as gripping as anything in thriller fiction." "But The Downing Street Years is as much an argument as it is a record or a series of character portraits. No prime minister of modern times has sought to change Britain and its place in the world as radically as she did. Her government, she says, was about the application of a philosophy, not the implementation of an administrative programme. She sets out here with forcefulness and conviction the reasons for her beliefs and how she sought to turn them into action." "Not the least interesting aspects of the book are the author's incidental insights into diplomacy ('the twin, opposing, temptations of statesmen are hubris and timidity'), political morality ('what is morally right often turns out to be politically expedient') and her own style and tone ('once I begin to follow a train of thought, I am not easily stopped'). It is a work intensely - sometimes unconsciously - revealing of the mind and personality of its author. The impression which emerges is, as one recent commentator put it, of a world-class battleship at full steam ahead. Her thoroughness, her passion for change, her tenacity and her astonishing determination are evident in every chapter of the book."

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Contents

Introduction
3
Over the Shop
17
Changing Signals
38
Copyright

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About the author (1993)

Margaret Thatcher born October 13, 1925, died on April 8, 2013. Margaret Thatcher was known as Britian's "Iron Lady." She was the the first woman ever to serve as Prime Minister of Great Britain; she served from 1979 to 1990 as leader of the Conservative Party, the longest-running prime minister of the 20th Century. During her time as prime minister, she focused on the characteristics of moral absolutism, nationalism, and the rights of the individual versus that of the state --- declaring, "There is no such thing as society" in 1987. Thatcher had a close working relationship with U.S. President Reagan, with whom she shared similar conservative views. Many saw her as the British counterpart to American "Reaganomics." Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts Oct. 13, 1925 in Grantham, England. She attended Somerville College, Oxford, where she studied chemistry. In 1953, she practiced law as a tax attorney. In 1959 she was elected to Britain's House of Commons --- she was its youngest female member. In 1970, when the Conservatives took power, she was made Britain's secretary of state for education and science. In 1975, she was chosen to lead the Conservatives, and she became the prime minister in 1979. In 1984, she narrowly escaped being killed when the IRA bombed her hotel during a party conference. The morning after, she convened the conference as scheduled. Thatcher authored many books in her lifetime; In Her Own Words contains some of her greatest speeches. In Path to Power, she wrote about the influences that shaped her early life, and in The Downing Street Years she wrote about the details of her years as prime minister. In her 2002 book, Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, Thatcher outlines her thoughts for political power and planning in the age of globalism. On a personal note, she married Denis Thatcher on December 13, 1951, and their marriage lasted for nearly 52 years until his death in June 2003. In 2002 she suffered a stroke; on the morning of April 8, 2013, she had her final stroke and died in her sleep.

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