Margaret Thatcher: Herself Alone

Charles Moore’s definitive biography of Britain’s first female prime minister reaches its climax with the story of her zenith and her fall.

How did Margaret Thatcher change and divide Britain? How did her model of combative female leadership help shape the way we live now? How did the woman who won the Cold War and three general elections in succession find herself pushed out by her own MPs?

Charles Moore’s full account, based on unique access to Margaret Thatcher herself, her papers, and her closest associates, tells the story of her last period in office, her combative retirement, and the controversy that surrounded her even in death. It includes the fall of the Berlin Wall, which she had fought for, and the rise of the modern EU that she feared. It lays bare her growing quarrels with colleagues and reveals the truth about her political assassination.

Moore’s three-part biography of Britain’s most important peacetime prime minister paints an intimate political and personal portrait of the victories and defeats, the iron will but surprising vulnerability of the woman who dominated in an age of male power. This is the full, enthralling story.

“Compelling and emotionally raw. . . . Some parts have a novelistic quality rarely found in the careful pages of political biographies. . . . Awesome scale and thoroughness. . . . Grippingly portrayed.  . . . Sharp.” —The Guardian

 
“Excellent. . . . Moore’s Margaret Thatcher is one of the truly great biographies. . . . Comprehensive and subtle, breaking new ground while being surefooted on familiar terrain. He provides a portrait of Thatcher that is surprising and fresh while still convincing. This volume completes a historical masterpiece.” —The Times (UK)