Who are the men and women who have shaped modern Britain? This new
book, drawn from the award-winning Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography, brings together the life stories of more than 800
individuals who died between 2001 and 2004. These are the people
responsible for some of the major developments in national life
during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Alongside
those who left their mark in politics, the arts, business, law,
military service, sport, and education are leading figures in new
branches of science and medicine-such as genetics, transplantation,
and computing-and in new forms of entertainment and
communication-from Radio One to the mobile phone. Many of those
featured in this volume are remembered, as in the examples of Queen
Elizabeth, the queen mother, the broadcaster Alistair Cooke, the
politician Roy Jenkins, or the actor Thora Hird, for a career
spanning many decades. Some-including the Nuremberg prosecutor
Hartley Shawcross, the molecular biologists Francis Crick and
Maurice Wilkins, the musician George Harrison or the campaigner
Mary Whitehouse-are more closely associated with specific periods
in our post-war history. Others enter the national record
principally for what have since become landmark moments, be they
Nyree Porter's appearance in the Forsyte Saga, Kenneth
Wolstenholme's World Cup commentary, Brian Trubshaw's Concorde test
flight, or the controversy surrounding the weapons inspector David
Kelly in 2003. Authoritative and accessible, the biographies in
this volume are written by specialist authors, many of them leading
figures in their field. Here you will find Ned Sherrin on Spike
Milligan, Anthony Howard on Barbara Castle, Bel Mooney on Bernard
Levin, Geoffrey Owen on Arnold Weinstock, Paul Johnson on Lord
Longford, Patrick Moore on Fred Hoyle, Sarah Bradford on Princess
Margaret, Michael Beloff on George Carman, Mike Phillips on Val
McCalla, and Andrew Huxley on Bernard Katz, one of nine Nobel
laureates to appear in this collection. Alongside these figures are
less familiar names responsible for some well-known features of
modern British life-from Godfrey Hounsfield and George Hersee,
inventors of the CAT scanner and the test card, to Jack Worsley,
bringer of acupuncture, and Barry Bucknell, pioneer of television
DIY. And because this is the Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography, many of the lives also offer a range of wonderfully
entertaining insights. Inside you'll also meet the lawyer Peter
Carter-Ruck, whose Rolls Royce sported the number plate L1BEL;
Daniel Coxeter, the mathematician who ascribed his longevity to
daily headstands; and Ian Russell, the entrepreneurial duke of
Bedford, who wrote in the visitors' book of a rival: 'You should
come to Woburn. It is better.'
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