An exhaustive archival study of the Thatcher years will not be possible until the release of key government sources. These are not due for public access over the whole period until 2020 at the earliest. The student is, therefore, dependent upon material published either at the time, or soon afterwards. Much of it comes from politicians themselves and, vital though it is, all such evidence needs to be treated with caution. Most politicians, especially if they remain active in public life, are desperate to have their actions viewed in a favourable light and keen to ensure that the policies for which they were responsible are understood from their own perspective. Thatcher herself is no exception to this.
Students of the Thatcher era have a distinct advantage over those working on other near-contemporary figures. The Margaret Thatcher Foundation has digitised and put online a massive amount of material, including all of Thatcher's major speeches and other primary-source material. It can be located at www.margaretthatcher.org. The Foundation does not pretend to be a national archive or to represent all views equally and the brief biographical introduction is hardly a dispassionate assessment of its subject. However, the site is immensely valuable and new additions to it are regularly made. It claims, quite correctly, to offer ‘thousands of documents touching on the career of Margaret Thatcher … to inform and advance understanding of the period’. It includes manuscript as well as printed sources, transcripts of interviews and much visual material. It also provides access to recently released or declassified documents, notably on the Falklands War and also from the Ronald Reagan archive.
The available printed literature is huge. What follows represents a highly selective, but not – the author hopes – arbitrary guide to the most useful, and most accessible, works written by politicians, historians, political scientists, economists and sociologists.
K. O. Morgan The People's Peace: British History, 1945–90 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1990) – an authoritative account
B. Porter Britannia's Burden: The Political Evolution of Modern Britain, 1851–1990 (Arnold, London, 1990) – a much longer perspective, but very good, if waspish, on Thatcher
P. Clarke Hope and Glory: Britain, 1900–1990 (Allen Lane, London, 1996) – a useful account, which places Thatcher within the overall perspective of Britain's decline
B. Harrison The Transformation of British Politics, 1860–1995 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996) – a distinguished study that offers valuable insights on ‘Victorian values’
A. McSmyth No Such Thing as Society: A History of Britain in the 1980s (Constable, London, 2011) – a lucid recent account by a broadsheet journalist of what the author considers a tempestuous decade
J. Charmley A History of Conservative Politics, 1900–96 (Macmillan, London, 1996) – generally sympathetic but well aware of the diversities that characterise twentieth-century Conservatism
(eds) A. Seldon and S. Ball Conservative Century (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994) – massive collection of authoritative essays on twentieth-century Conservatism, with useful comment on Thatcherism
E. Royle Modern Britain: A Social History, 1750–2011 (3rd ed., Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2012) – broad chronology but usefully identifies key social, economic and cultural developments of the Thatcher period and beyond
(ed.) Kathleen Burke The British Isles since 1945 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003) – a useful brief overview that puts the Thatcher period in context
John Campbell Margaret Thatcher (2 vols, Jonathan Cape, London: vol 1, The Grocer's Daughter, 2000; vol 2, The Iron Lady, 2003) – the most substantial current biography and enriched by evidence from a large number of interviews with Thatcher's political contemporaries. The author states that while ‘not an “official” biography’ it is not exactly ‘unauthorized’. He notes that Thatcher's private office had ‘always been helpful when required’. Unsurprisingly, the biography takes a broadly favourable view of both the prime minister and of the scale of her achievements
E. H. H. Green Thatcher (Hodder Arnold, London, 2006) – despite its title, more a study of Conservative Party ideology than a biography. Argues that continuity within a Tory tradition characterises Thatcher's leadership
Richard Vinen Thatcher's Britain: the Politics and Social Upheaval of the 1980s (Simon & Schuster, London, 2009) – a useful modern study with a conclusion that resists stereotypical encapsulations of Thatcherism and stresses its importance as a reaction to perceived crises both at home and abroad. It also contains an elegantly waspish chapter on ‘Sources’. This warns against laying too much stress on the opinions of well-connected journalists with privileged, but sometimes tainted, insider access to politicians and civil servants
Geoffrey K. Fry The Politics of the Thatcher Revolution: An interpretation of British Politics, 1979–1990 (Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2008) – a balanced, non-ideological, treatment by a political scientist
T. Bale The Conservative Party from Thatcher to Cameron (Polity, Cambridge, 2011) – concentrates on one legacy of Thatcher: party divisions. The book attempts to explain why the Conservatives seemed unelectable for so long from 1997 and finds many of the answers in rancorous splits over Europe
Kenneth Harris Thatcher (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1988) – accurate and well-organised but lacking a cutting edge
Hugo Young One of Us: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher (Pan Books, London, 1990) – a long, but consistently engaging, read from a distinguished journalist. Especially strong on how the specific details illuminate the overall picture
Peter Jenkins Mrs Thatcher's Revolution: The Ending of the Socialist Era (Jonathan Cape, London, 1987) – well written and adopts a broadly critical stance
Martin Holmes The First Thatcher Government, 1979–83: Contemporary Conservatism and Economic Change (Wheatsheaf, London, 1985) – a sympathetic assessment
Martin Holmes Thatcher and Thatcherism: Scope and Limitations, 1983–87 (Macmillan, London, 1989) – in essence a sequel to the volume cited above
Anthony Seldon and Daniel Collings Britain under Thatcher (Longman, Seminar Studies in History, London, 2000) – a useful introduction to the period, with a range of brief contemporary sources
Brendan Evans Thatcherism and British Politics, 1975–1997 (Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2000) – a workmanlike account, which takes story on into the Major years
Peter Riddell The Thatcher Government (2nd ed., Blackwell, Oxford, 1985) – another high-class journalistic study of the first government
(eds) S. Edgell and V. Duke A Measure of Thatcherism (Harper Collins, London, 1991) – strongly sociological perspective in a disparate collection of essays
(eds) S. P. Savage and L. Robins Public Policy under Thatcher (Macmillan, London, 1990) – useful collection of essays on the implications of specific policies
(eds) K. Minogue and M. Biddiss Thatcherism: Personality and Politics (Macmillan, London, 1987)
(ed.) R. Skidelsky Thatcherism (Chatto & Windus, London, 1988) – an eclectic set of essays with a cerebral introduction by the editor
P. Riddell The Thatcher Decade (Blackwell, Oxford, 1989)
P. Riddell The Thatcher Era and its Legacy (Blackwell, Oxford, 1991)
Dennis Kavanagh Thatcherism & British Politics: The End of Consensus? (Oxford University Press, 1987)
Richard Aldous Reagan & Thatcher: The Difficult Relationship (Hutchinson, London, 2012) – as its title implies, this is a revisionist account that argues that Thatcher saw Reagan ‘as much as a hindrance as a help to British foreign policy’
(eds) D. Kavanagh and A. Seldon The Thatcher Effect (Oxford University Press, 1989) – a variable collection of brief essays, the best of which are excellent
Alan Watkins A Conservative Coup: The Fall of Margaret Thatcher (2nd. ed., Duckworth, London, 1992) – the title is somewhat misleading. The focus is on why, and how, she went but there are many longer-term references. Particularly strong on political gossip and sharp, precise constitutional references
Andrew Gamble The Free Economy and the Strong State (2nd ed., Macmillan, London, 1994)
Will Hutton The State We're In (Vintage ed., London, 1996) – deservedly a bestseller. Accessibly written, but a tough-minded Keynesian critique of monetarist theory and its political practitioners
Will Hutton The World We're In (Time Warner Books, London, 2002) – takes a more global perspective but also revisits some of the themes that made Hutton such a cogent critic of Thatcher's economic policy
Will Hutton Them and Us: Changing Britain – Why We Need a Fair Society (Abacus Books, London, 2011) – the focus here is on the inefficiencies of inequality, as well as the moral dimension
David Willetts Modern Conservatism (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1992) – a thoughtful interpretation from a Tory politician arguing, not always convincingly, the case for continuity in Conservative principles from Disraeli through to Thatcher and Major
David Marquand The Unprincipled Society: New Demands and Old Politics (Fontana, London, 1988) – another attack on Thatcherism, from a political scientist with a social-democratic, ethical perspective
Harold Perkin The Third Revolution: Political Elites in the Modern World (Routledge, London, 1996) – written by a social historian, the title notwithstanding. Lucid and vigorous, with a particularly trenchant line on Thatcher's attack on the professionals
(eds) Andrew Adonis and Tim Hames A Conservative Revolution: The Thatcher-Reagan Decade (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1994) – brings a useful comparative perspective and attempts to show why right-wing ideas were dominant in the West throughout the 1980s
Peter Hennessy Whitehall (Fontana, London, 1990) – unrivalled study by a professor of Contemporary History of how the government machine actually works. Draws heavily on the experience of the Thatcher years
Peter Hennessy The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders since 1945 (Penguin, London, 2001) – asserts himself ‘protective of the lady's significance’, while strongly aware of her faults
Michael Foley The British Presidency (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2000) – basically a study of Blair's exercise of power but considers the Thatcher period as a ‘precedent’. Sees Thatcher provocatively as a ‘populist insurgent’
G. Stoker The Politics of Local Government (2nd ed., Macmillan, London, 1991) – a very valuable introduction to the often complex – and during the Thatcher years immensely controversial – world of local government responsibility
Roger Middleton The British Economy since 1945 (Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2000) – broadly critical of Thatcher's ‘modest’ economic success in halting long-term economic decline, when set against the in-egalitarian consequences of Thatcherite economic policy, including both the social and economic costs of high levels of unemployment.
(eds) Bob Jessop, K. Bonnett, S. Bromley and T. Ling Thatcherism: A Tale of Two Nations (Polity Press, Oxford, 1988) – another tendentious title that betrays its political provenance. The unwieldy practice of the editorial ‘collective’ is a strong clue
(eds) S. Hall and M. Jacques The Politics of Thatcherism (Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1983) – another collection of essays from the left, some of them theoretical
Simon Jenkins Thatcher & Sons (Allen Lane, London, 2006) – the key argument here is that Thatcher did inaugurate a revolution and that its impact significantly outlasted her, not only through the Major years but also under the New Labour leadership of Blair and Brown
Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (Harper Collins, London, 1993) – absolutely essential, not because it's a brief – or a specially riveting – read. Thatcher, to be blunt, is a very pedestrian writer. However, her account contains so many insights into both government and the workings of a highly political mind. Many of the insights are unintentional, which adds to the book's value Margaret Thatcher The Path to Power (Harper Collins, London, 1995) – ‘prequel ’ to the above and written in similar style. Entirely outside the chronology covered by the rest of the book, it contains an epilogue that Major rightly interpreted as a root-and-branch condemnation of the policies of his government
Margaret Thatcher Statecraft (Harper Collins, London, 2002) – a characteristically trenchant and frequently unsubtle tour d'horizon, replete with minatory comments on the limitations of international organisations and the necessity of realpolitik in international relations. Informed by substantial direct experience of world politics and, as usual with Thatcher's writings, unintentionally revealing about aspects of her character
Nigel Lawson The View from Number 11 (Bantam Press, London, 1993) – equals Thatcher's books in length and in its penchant for self-justification; comfortably exceeds them in style and readability. Lawson was a journalist as well as a politician. The book of a strong-minded man only rarely visited by doubt
Ian Gilmour Dancing with Dogma: Britain under Thatcherism (Simon & Schuster, London, 1992) – an elegant attack by Thatcher's ablest ‘wet ’ oppo-nent in Cabinet. Also brings a useful wider perspective to bear. One of very few of Thatcher's ministers (Baker, Carrington and Hurd are the others) with a well-developed historical awareness
Kenneth Baker The Turbulent Years (Faber & Faber, London, 1993) – anodyne in places but useful as the memoirs of a wet who – as chairman of the party – was one of Thatcher's most loyal Cabinet supporters at the end
John Major John Major: The Autobiography (Harper Collins, London, 1999) – contains a number of interesting and perceptive insights, not least on the circumstances that brought about the fall. The book offers more reservations about Thatcher's leadership than her successor ever felt it appropriate to voice at the time
Alan Clark Diaries (Phoenix, London, 1993) – Clark wasn't an important politician, though he would have desperately liked to be one. He would have been mortified to see that he rated only a single entry in the index of Thatcher's big book. However, he was close to many people who were politically important and writes about them in a wonderfully uninhibited manner. Much the best diary of the Thatcher years and one of the best of the ‘political ’ contributions
Norman Tebbit Upwardly Mobile (Futura, London, 1989) – a visceral right-winger who was close to the centre of power in the middle years of Thatcher's ascendancy. His view would have been more enlightening if it had been as indiscreet as Clark's
James Prior Balance of Power (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1986) – a reasonably frank account of the difficulties of a left-wing Conservative in a right-wing government