A GUIDE TO FURTHER READING

The scholarly literature about Thatcher and Thatcherism is vast. I’ve not endeavored here to provide a complete guide to it. These are merely a few suggestions for readers who are now on fire to deepen their acquaintance with Thatcher and her epoch.

If you’re looking for a more traditional biography of Margaret Thatcher, John Campbell’s two volumes are the gold standard. The Grocer’s Daughter covers the years from 1925 to 1979. The Iron Lady treats her life until 2003. I particularly recommend the first seven chapters of The Grocer’s Daughter. This is an unauthorized biography, but Campbell has received excellent cooperation from the key players.

Charles Moore, formerly the editor of the Daily Telegraph, is now working on Thatcher’s authorized biography. He has had access to all of her papers. No one else has. His book will be published upon her death. I would say that I cannot wait to read it, but given what this implies, I would prefer to wait for a very long while.

Thatcher’s memoirs—again, two volumes—are wonderful. The Path to Power treats her life until 1979; The Downing Street Years covers her premiership. If you have time for only one, read The Downing Street Years. Critics have been snotty about her memoirs, as indeed they are snotty about her generally, but they are snotty for no reason: These books are lively, revealing, arch, wise, and beautifully written. Also invaluable is Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, her treatise on international affairs.

As for other memoirs of this period, no one should shuffle off this mortal coil before reading Alan Clark’s diaries. There are three volumes: Into Politics, In Power, and The Last Diaries. I’m not sure that you’ll come away from them with a much deeper understanding of Margaret Thatcher, but you’ll certainly better understand the environment in which she was obliged to maneuver. (Clark describes Michael Heseltine, for example, as the kind of person “who bought his own furniture”—a remark from which an entire book about the British class structure could be derived.)

The View from No. 11, by Nigel Lawson, is the most important memoir of economic policymaking during this period. No one ever wished it longer, but you’ll have no further questions about the Exchange Rate Mechanism dispute after you finish it.

Although it is now hard to come by, I also recommend John Hoskyns’s diary, Just in Time: Inside the Thatcher Revolution. Shrewd, detailed, and too rarely read. On Thatcherism as an ideology, Shirley Robin Letwin’s The Anatomy of Thatcherism is unusually sophisticated and interesting.

If you’d like to know more about Arthur Scargill, Paul Routledge has written an excellent eponymous biography. It is of course unauthorized. Scargill is apparently now preparing his own autobiography. I expect his perspective on the miners’ strike will be different from mine.

For the Falklands, nothing comes close to Sir Lawrence Freedman’s two-volume Official History of the Falklands War. It’s the best, most thoroughly sourced, and most comprehensive work extant on the subject.

On Thatcher’s role in the Cold War, I suggest John O’Sullivan’s book, The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World. I would argue that the book should have had half as much pope and twice as much prime minister, but in O’Sullivan’s defense, he has already written a great deal for and about Margaret Thatcher. He was her speechwriter and subsequently played a large hand in the writing of her memoirs.

For a sturdy academic account of Thatcher’s economic policy, try Mrs. Thatcher’s Economic Experiment by William Keegan. It is accessible but critical. Martin Holmes’s The First Thatcher Government is somewhat more sympathetic. David Smith’s From Boom to Bust deals with the later period. Robert Skidelsky’s anthology, Thatcherism, contains a useful selection of essays about her economic policies, both for and against.

The Margaret Thatcher Foundation offers free access to thousands upon thousands of source documents on its Web site, as well as many interesting photos and video clips. If you are at all curious about this epoch, you’ll pass many happy hours there. Likewise, if you’re seeking a comprehensive, up-to-date bibliography, check there. The Foundation is preparing one right now. It will probably be ready by the time you read this.