The Prime Minister: The Office And Its Holders Since 1945 - Softcover

Hennessy, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140283935 ISBN 13: 9780140283938

Publisher: Penguin, 2001

Synopsis

In The Prime Minister: the Office and its Holders since 1945, Peter Hennessy explores the formal powers of the Prime Minister and how each incumbent has made the job his or her own.

Drawing on unparalleled access to many of the leading figures, as well as the key civil servants and journalists of each period, he has built up a picture of the hidden nexus of influence and patronage surrounding the office.

From recently declassified archival material he reconstructs, often for the first time, precise prime ministerial attitudes towards the key issues of peace and war. He concludes with a controversial assessment of the relative performance of each Prime Minister since 1945, from Clement Atlee and Winston Churchhill to Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, and proposes a new specification for the premiership as it enters its fourth century.

'I really can't praise it too highly: a tremendous achievement ... an instant classic'
  Antony Jay, author of Yes, Prime Minister

'Supersedes everything else written on the subject. If I were Tony Blair, I'd keep a copy by my bedside'
  Adam Sisman, Observer

'A must ... far and away the best account of the office of the First Lord of the Treasury, its history, powers and practice, and an independent assessment of the occupants of Downing Street since the Second World War'
  Tony Benn, Spectator

'Important and extremely readable ... Hennessy's portrait of the Blair premiership is fascinating ... a major contribution to our understanding of how we are governed'
  Peter Oborne, Sunday Express

Peter Hennessy is Attlee Professor of History at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. Among many other books, he is the author of The Secret State, Whitehall and Never Again: Britain 1945-1951, which in 1993 won the NCR Award for Non-Fiction and the Duff Cooper Prize.

About this title

Review:

Peter Hennessy, former journalist turned scholar of contemporary political history, is an academic aeolus whose infectious enthusiasm for his subject, Whitehall and Westminster, blows the dust off documents and reinflates a mandarin's minute with a telling topicality. The holder of the Chair of Contemporary History at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, he has natural gift (and inclination) for grafting germane gossip onto the gravity of his subject and thus enlivening his expert exhumation of archives with appropriate anecdote. His earlier work, Whitehall has become a classic, and in his latest study he turns his attention to the steady accretion of power by Prime Ministers since the last world war and makes an assessment of each occupant of 10 Downing Street. Hennessy delights in proceeding by exposure as well as explication, throwing up fascinating insights on Premiers as they arrive at crucial decisions. He is undoubtedly happiest when chronicling the manoeuvrings of the backroom boys in Whitehall rather than those in the corridors of the Palace of Westminster, but then the shift of power away from the legislature to the executive is becoming all too apparent. In each of his studies, Hennessy shows how individual Prime Ministers struggled and shaped the governance of the nation to their different personalities, and then their day of hard graft and glory is gone. As Harold Macmillan, one of the more charismatic holders of the office, said after his resignation, "nothing rolls up more quickly than a red carpet" --Michael Hatfield

Review:

..."a grand, lively, leisurely, and provocative study of the prime minister's office and its holders..."--Jerry H. Brookshire, Albion
"An entertaining and fiercely researched account by the leading authority on British executive government." --"The Economist"
"One of the most penetrating and entertaining political books of the year." --"The Times, London"
..."the authoritative administrative history of the postwar British premiership." --"Publishers Weekly"
"This study of the office of prime minister ... supersedes everything else written on the subject." --"The Observer"
., ."a grand, lively, leisurely, and provocative study of the prime minister's office and its holders..."--Jerry H. Brookshire, Albion
" An entertaining and fiercely researched account by the leading authority on British executive government." -- "The Economist"
" One of the most penetrating and entertaining political books of the year." -- "The Times, London"
" ...the authoritative administrative history of the postwar British premiership." -- "Publishers Weekly"
" This study of the office of prime minister ... supersedes everything else written on the subject." -- "The Observer"
.,."a grand, lively, leisurely, and provocative study of the prime minister's office and its holders..."--Jerry H. Brookshire, Albion"An entertaining and fiercely researched account by the leading authority on British executive government." --"The Economist""One of the most penetrating and entertaining political books of the year." --"The Times, London,,"."the authoritative administrative history of the postwar British premiership." --"Publishers Weekly""This study of the office of prime minister ... supersedes everything else written on the subject." --"The Observer"

."..a grand, lively, leisurely, and provocative study of the prime minister's office and its holders..."--Jerry H. Brookshire, Albion
"An entertaining and fiercely researched account by the leading authority on British executive government." --"The Economist"

"One of the most penetrating and entertaining political books of the year." --"The Times, London"

."..the authoritative administrative history of the postwar British premiership." --"Publishers Weekly"

"This study of the office of prime minister ... supersedes everything else written on the subject." --"The Observer"
..".a grand, lively, leisurely, and provocative study of the prime minister's office and its holders..."--Jerry H. Brookshire, Albion
"An entertaining and fiercely researched account by the leading authority on British executive government." --"The Economist"
"One of the most penetrating and entertaining political books of the year." --"The Times, London"
..".the authoritative administrative history of the postwar British premiership." --"Publishers Weekly"
"This study of the office of prime minister ... supersedes everything else written on the subject." --"The Observer"

...a grand, lively, leisurely, and provocative study of the prime minister's office and its holders... "Jerry H. Brookshire, Albion"

An entertaining and fiercely researched account by the leading authority on British executive government. "The Economist"

One of the most penetrating and entertaining political books of the year. "The Times, London"

...the authoritative administrative history of the postwar British premiership. "Publishers Weekly"

This study of the office of prime minister ... supersedes everything else written on the subject. "The Observer""

..".a grand, lively, leisurely, and provocative study of the prime minister's office and its holders..." --Jerry H. Brookshire, Albion

"An entertaining and fiercely researched account by the leading authority on British executive government." --The Economist

"One of the most penetrating and entertaining political books of the year." --The Times, London

..".the authoritative administrative history of the postwar British premiership." --Publishers Weekly

"This study of the office of prime minister ... supersedes everything else written on the subject." --The Observer

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0140283935
• ISBN 13: 9780140283938
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 752