The Downing Street Years - Softcover

Thatcher, Margaret

3.95

1,492 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006383211 ISBN 13: 9780006383215

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1995

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This first volume of Margaret Thatcher's memoirs encompasses the whole of her time as Prime Minister - the formation of her goals in the early 1980s, the Falklands, the General Election victories of 1983 and 1987 and, eventually, the circumstances of her fall from political power. She also gives frank accounts of her dealings with foreign statesmen and her own ministers.

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From the Back Cover:

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.

No prime minister of modern times has sought to change Britain and its place in the world as radically as Margaret Thatcher. Her government was, she says, about the application of a philosophy, not the implementation of an administrative programme. She sets out here with characteristic forcefulness and conviction the reasons for her beliefs and how she sought to put them into action. She gives riveting accounts of the great and critical moments of her premiership – the Falklands War, the Miner's strike, the Brighton bomb, the Westland Affair and her three election victories. Her judgements of other world statesman and her Cabinet colleagues are often brutally frank, her criticism devastating. The book ends with an account of her last days in power which as gripping as anything in thriller fiction.

This is a work intensely revealing of the mind and personality of its author: her thoroughness, her passion for change, her tenacity and her astonishing determination are evident in every chapter of the book. The impression which emerges is, as one recent commentator put it, of a world-class battleship at full steam ahead.

"A book which should be read by everyone with any interest in contemporary history of political affairs."
NORMAN TEBBIT, 'Daily Mail'

"Some things in life are priceless. So are Margaret Thatcher's guts. They have left their mark on the world. So will 'The Downing Street Years'"
BERNARD INGHAM, 'Daily Express'

About the Author:

In 1979 Margaret Thatcher became the first woman British Prime Minister. A decade later she became the first premier for 160 years to win three consecutive general elections. In 1990 she resigned her leadership of an increasingly divided and turbulent government. She is the only PM to have given her name to a branch of political philosophy, and arguably the most important figure in postwar British politics.

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