Margaret Thatcher

'One of the great biographical achievements of our times' (Sunday Times), Charles Moore's bestselling and definitive biography of Britain's first female Prime Minister reaches its climax with the story of her zenith and her fall

This third and climactic volume of Charles Moore's authorised biography gives the definitive account of Margaret Thatcher's third term in office and her life after it. Three stories run through the whole book.

The first is Mrs Thatcher's dominance of her government in almost every domestic field, but also her growing intolerance of dissent, the increasing alienation of her most senior ministers over Europe and the fatal corrosion which followed.

The second is her commanding presence on the world stage (including relations with Reagan, Gorbachev, Bush, Kohl and Mandela), her role in the ending of the Cold War, her central position in the response to the invasion of Kuwait, and her increasing isolation as America's priorities in Europe changed.

The third is how she, a woman, coped and led in political worlds almost entirely occupied by men. The three stories come dramatically together in the autumn of 1990 when, at the moment of greatest domestic danger, she travelled to Paris to participate in the ceremonies ending the Cold War. The chapters here on her fall are, in their drama, unmatched in modern political biography.

About the Author

Charles Moore joined the staff of the Daily Telegraph in 1979, and as a political columnist in the 1980s covered several years of Mrs Thatcher's first and second governments. He was Editor of the Spectator 1984-90; Editor of the Sunday Telegraph 1992-95; and Editor of the Daily Telegraph 1995-2003, for which he is still a regular columnist. The first volume of his biography of Margaret Thatcher, published in 2013, won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, the HW Fisher Best First Biography Prize and Political Book of the Year at the Paddy Power Political Book Awards.