Edward Heath: A Biography

by JohnCampbell (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1993

  $3.39

  Edward Heath was the first of three Tory party leaders to break the public school tradition and achieve high office from humble origins. He was an intellectual who believed in one nation at the heart of Europe and the common good before personal gain. Yet, as Prime Minister at a time of flux, everything he tried to achieve led directly to its opposite - Thatcherism. For a man who never married, whose doting mother had waited on him hand and foot, it was a cruel irony to find himself sidelined on every major issue by a woman as wrong-headed as he believed Margaret Thatcher to be.

• Used

  Paperback
  1994

  $3.39

  The son of a carpenter, Heath broke the mould of upper-class Tory leaders and suffered years of snobbish mockery. With accomplishments outside politics, in music and international sailing, he is a veritable Renaissance Man. Yet his period premiership collapsed in chaos and humiliation after only three-and-a-half years. Eclipsed by the Thatcherite economic miracle, his achievements were easily overlooked. Now that Thatcherism itself has given way to a punishing recession, perhaps Heath can emerge in terms of Shakespearean tragedy - as a man of remarkable qualities cursed with a blight that turned all to ashes. This biography is by the author of Lloyd George: the Goat in the Wilderness , F.E. Smith , Roy Jenkins and Nye Bevan and the Mirage of British Socialism .