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Britain's Prime Ministers
This useful single-volume collection combines an introductory essay on the emergence and changing role of the British prime minister with 51 concise biographies of the people who have played this role, from Sir Robert Walpole at the beginning of the 18th century to current prime minister Tony Blair. These essays reveal how each figure molded the office in response to the situation of the time, and the preface by Lord Butler adds insight into the present-day workings of the office.
300 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 11, 2015
I had been looking for a book covering the prime ministers of Britain for some time. There seem to be many books covering kings and queens of England/UK, and many on presidents of US, so it seemed surprising to me that this was the only book of this type I could find.
The book consists of fairly short (typically five or six pages) biographies of each Prime Minister since Robert Walpole could be said to have led the house. I read these in order which caused me a couple of problems.
First, as the biographies covered whole lifespans there was a lot of zipping forwards and backwards in time as each new Prime Minister was described, and the same period in history would be covered a number of times. As a result of the brevity of each biography there was no space to discuss the historical events being mentioned. Hence, the "John Wilkes affair" was mentioned in a number of places, and I'm none-the-wiser as to what it related to. Additionally Prime Ministers were mentioned in biographies of others before their entry, together with other politicians who never got the top job. Given the structure of the book, this was bound to happen, but I found it more than a little confusing.
Secondly, the author tended to make (to my mind) too many judgements of the individuals rather than presenting the facts. Invariably, these would see only the good in the PM - that a good Prime Minister was as good as his reputation would suggest, or that a "bad" Prime Minister had been misunderstood. I suppose all biographers fall a bit in love with their subject.
Halfway through I considered ditching the book, but thought I'd read the entries for Thatcher, Major and Blair first, which covered eras I have lived through. These entries were most interesting, partly because I recognised the bit-players and had background on the events mentioned.
I therefore finished the book, concluding that it was my lack of knowledge of history which had caused the book to drag in the middle.
As I read more around the subject, I'll return to this book and hopefully get more out of it.
The book consists of fairly short (typically five or six pages) biographies of each Prime Minister since Robert Walpole could be said to have led the house. I read these in order which caused me a couple of problems.
First, as the biographies covered whole lifespans there was a lot of zipping forwards and backwards in time as each new Prime Minister was described, and the same period in history would be covered a number of times. As a result of the brevity of each biography there was no space to discuss the historical events being mentioned. Hence, the "John Wilkes affair" was mentioned in a number of places, and I'm none-the-wiser as to what it related to. Additionally Prime Ministers were mentioned in biographies of others before their entry, together with other politicians who never got the top job. Given the structure of the book, this was bound to happen, but I found it more than a little confusing.
Secondly, the author tended to make (to my mind) too many judgements of the individuals rather than presenting the facts. Invariably, these would see only the good in the PM - that a good Prime Minister was as good as his reputation would suggest, or that a "bad" Prime Minister had been misunderstood. I suppose all biographers fall a bit in love with their subject.
Halfway through I considered ditching the book, but thought I'd read the entries for Thatcher, Major and Blair first, which covered eras I have lived through. These entries were most interesting, partly because I recognised the bit-players and had background on the events mentioned.
I therefore finished the book, concluding that it was my lack of knowledge of history which had caused the book to drag in the middle.
As I read more around the subject, I'll return to this book and hopefully get more out of it.
January 3, 2014
Excellent and a very useful future reference. Very helpful in explaining the development of democracy in Britain over the last three-hundred or so years.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews