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

Eden

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

[A] biography of almost unqualified excellence.

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.

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.

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.

D. R. Thorpe is a senior member of Brasenose College, Oxford. He has written widely on twentieth-century British political history, and was invited to undertake this biography by the Countess of Avon, Eden's widow, who has made important new material available to him.

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.

D R Thorpe

This is how D.R. Thorpe tells the story, eloquently and elegantly, as he does everything in this exemplary biography, which complements if it does not entirely supplant Alistair Horne’s two-volume official Life; Horne is better on the military, Thorpe on the political and personal. At every juncture Thorpe presents the evidence in a scrupulous and equable style

A spellbinding insight into the fascinating character of one of the most remarkable politicians of the twentieth century

DR Thorpe is one of our finest historians, and this is one of his finest books: painstaking, detailed, but always readable. You come as close as you can to understanding Macmillan from these pages

This humane, elegantly written, exhaustively researched biography is the best yet of Macmillan, and indeed one of the best of any postwar prime minister

Superb biography...Thorpe has three qualities that make him a first-rate biographer and they are all evident here. He is a phenomenal scholar and has left almost no primary source untapped for this book. He is the master of the anecdote, in which the book abounds and which as a result makes it a joy to read...But best of all, Thorpe writes beautifully... he understands that in writing the life of a politician, it is not all about politics

Beautifully written biography...What the book shows...is that he was almost certainly the last prime minister worthy of our history as a great power

A beautifully judged political biography, written with great flair and insight, and surely the last word on one of out most civilised, cunning and ambiguous prime ministers.

Macmillan really walks and talks his stylish yet nervy way through these pages.

Gives a wonderful sense of Macmillan's complexity and stature

A spellbinding insight into the fascinating character of one of the most remarkable politicians of the 20th century.

A solidly buttressed biography that parallels his earlier works... Supermac is crammed full with interesting facts, germane and diverting by turns

Thorpe's superb biography leaves no primary source untapped, and bountiful anecdotes make this account of a truly three-dimensional character a joy to read.

Bringing together 35 years of research this biography of Harold Macmillan looks at both his personal and political achievements, conflicts, and events that defined his time. From Eton to prime minister, this is a compelling read.

He is an Aston Martin DB6 kind of writer, who is very English, very stately

Scholarly, and thoroughly researched, Supermac should nevertheless appeal to the general reader through the accessibility of its proce and the assistance offered by placing events in historical context... Humane, benevolent, and considerable; much like its subject

The best biography of a post-war British Prime Minister yet written.

Vernon Bogdanor, Professor of Government at Oxford University

The Life of Harold Macmillan

Great-grandson of a crofter and son-in-law of a Duke, Harold Macmillan (1894-1986) was both complex as a person and influential as a politican. Marked by terrible experiences in the trenches in the First World War and by his work as an MP during the Depression, he was a Tory rebel - an outspoken backbencher, opposing the economic policies of the 1930s and the appeasement policies of his own government. 
 
Churchill gave him responsibility during the Second World War with executive command as 'Viceroy of the Mediterranean'. After the War, in opposition, Macmillan was one of the principal reformers of the Conservatives, and after 1951, back in government, served in several important posts before becoming Prime Minister after the Suez Crisis. 
 
Supermac examines key events including the controversy over the Cossacks repatriation, the Suez Crisis, You've Never Had It So Good, the Winds of Change, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Profumo Scandal. The culmination of thirty-five years of research into this period by one of our most respected historians, this book gives an unforgettable portrait of a turbulent age. 
 
Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize.

D R Thorpe

Praise for Supermac

This is how D.R. Thorpe tells the story, eloquently and elegantly, as he does everything in this exemplary biography, which complements if it does not entirely supplant Alistair Horne’s two-volume official Life

A spellbinding insight into the fascinating character of one of the most remarkable politicians of the twentieth century

DR Thorpe is one of our finest historians, and this is one of his finest books: painstaking, detailed, but always readable. You come as close as you can to understanding Macmillan from these pages

This is how D.R. Thorpe tells the story, eloquently and elegantly, as he does everything in this exemplary biography, which complements if it does not entirely supplant Alistair Horne’s two-volume official Life

A spellbinding insight into the fascinating character of one of the most remarkable politicians of the twentieth century

DR Thorpe is one of our finest historians, and this is one of his finest books: painstaking, detailed, but always readable. You come as close as you can to understanding Macmillan from these pages

This is how D.R. Thorpe tells the story, eloquently and elegantly, as he does everything in this exemplary biography, which complements if it does not entirely supplant Alistair Horne’s two-volume official Life

A spellbinding insight into the fascinating character of one of the most remarkable politicians of the twentieth century

DR Thorpe is one of our finest historians, and this is one of his finest books: painstaking, detailed, but always readable. You come as close as you can to understanding Macmillan from these pages

Books by D R Thorpe

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