An updated and revised edition of a lively account of British Conservativism, illuminated throughout by a concentration upon the men, and woman, who have led the Conservative party.This book is written by a big name author with trade acumen and a lively and engaging writing style. It offers detailed history and analysis from 1830 to the present day, including a new chapter on David Cameron's leadership. It provides revisionist accounts of Peel, Disraeli and Churchill.The second edition of this successful text has been thoroughly updated to take into account recent research, and now begins at 1830. Charmley examines the history of the party and takes the story through the recent 'wilderness years' following the 1997 election fiasco, right up to David Cameron's leadership.

Politician, diplomat, scholar, lover, gambler and bon viveur, Duff Cooper lived life to the full. After winning the DSO in the First World War, he wooed and married the greatest beauty of the day, Lady Diana Manners. Becoming a politician, Duff Cooper had an important ministerial career until his resignation over the Munich Agreement. Called back to office by Churchill, his chequered wartime career culminated in a successful spell as Ambassador to France. 'Duff Cooper was beyond question one of the most interesting and colourful pulic figures of his time. John Charmley has written his life with clarity, subtlety and - as most befits the subject - style.' John Grigg, Observer 'Mr Charmley's biography is well researched, of genuine interest, and, above all, admirably fair.' Philip Ziegler, Sunday Times

Most studies of World War II assume that it was, in some way, a triumph for Britain. John Charmley's important new reappraisal of the immediate origins of the war is based on extensive new work in the Chamberlain papers. It starts from Chamberlain's belief that even a victorious war would be a disaster-it would destroy the foundations of British power and hand over Europe to Russian domination. Reconstructing Chamberlain's policy assumptions, Mr. Charmley argues that they were neither naive nor foolish. While focusing on the prime minister's personality, he also shows that Chamberlain's views were shared by many other leading politicians and diplomats. Mr. Charmley thus resurrects a whole school of thought on foreign policy which was forgotten in the wake of Churchill's triumph. Unlike Churchill, Chamberlain was not prepared to gamble an empire; but events produced, according to Mr. Charmley, indeed a "human tragedy." Early British reviews of the book have called it "important," "entertaining and absorbing," "concise and spirited," and "provocative." The Guardian wrote: "Chamberlain hardly emerges a hero from these pages, but at least there is no excuse left for regarding him as no more than a wimp in a wing-collar."

"Splendid Isolation? "is at once a portrait of British politics and diplomacy at the height of British power and a revisionist account of the First World War. John Charmley argues a powerful and challenging case, forcing a fresh look at a period long held to be part of the glorious British past.

The Anglo-American alliance was the cornerstone of Churchill's foreign policy after 1940, and from then up to the present, the 'special relationship' has always been a feature of Anglo-American relations. This controversial study ruthlessly strips away the myth to reveal the unsentimental reality. Churchill carried on the war in 1940 because he believed that American help could save the British Empire. This book argues that his faith was misplaced, that Franklin Roosevelt saw an end to imperialism as one of America's war aims. Fighting until Germany's 'unconditional surrender' meant that Britain ended the war weakened and dependent on America. Churchill, Bevin and Attlee all tried to persuade America into looking after British imperial interests in the post-war period, but as the Cold War dawned the Americans were only interested in using British help when it suited them. Britain's last attempt to act independently of America - Suez - ended disastrously, and the book ends with Anthony Eden's removal from power under American pressure. This is the final work in John Charmley's revisionist triptych of British foreign policy in the mid-twentieth century. The other two books - Chamberlain and the Lost Peace and Churchill: The End of Glory - are also available in Faber Finds.

In this controversial and challenging study based on extensive new work on Chamberlain's papers, John Charmley argues against the commonly held view that Chamberlain's policy of appeasement towards Hitler was naive and weak. By presenting the conflicting views of Chamberlain, Eden and Churchill from the perspective of the pre-war years, he outs forward the view that Chamberlain, correctly foreseeing the long-term damage the war would do to Britain, was justified in pursuing the chance of peace.

This is the first of three revisionist titles John Charmley wrote challenging the accepted version of British foreign policy in the mid-twentieth century; the other two titles are Churchill: The End of Glory and Churchill's Grand Alliance. All three are being reissued in Faber Finds.

'A concise and spirited defence of Chamberlain.' David Reynolds, "Independent "

Of the three revisionist works John Charmley has written about British foreign policy in the mid-twentieth century this is the centrepiece.

The author argues that Churchill deserves more credit for 'their finest hour' than has been granted, but just as his virtues were built on the heroic scale, so too were his faults and failures. The statesman who had struggled to destroy Nazism and restore Europe's balance of power ended by allowing Stalin to dominate central and eastern Europe.

This is no mere exercise in debunking, in many ways the complex man presented in these pages is more interesting than the more hagiographical portraits.

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""'This is not instant history run up to cause a sensation, but a meticulously documented reappraisal of Churchill's war leadership and of the career that led up to it. Nor is its tone contemptuous or vindictive. The author accepts that Churchill was a great man. His starting point is that even great men make mistakes.' John Keegan, "Daily Telegraph "

'Probably the most important revisionist text to be published since the war.' Alan Clark, "The Times"

This edited collection brings together over 550 documents relating to the foreign policy of the British Conservative governments formed in 1852, 1858, 1866 and 1874. Produced by key policy-makers such as Benjamin Disraeli and successive earls of Derby, they consider the major issues of the day, including the declaration of the French Second Empire, the wars of Italian Unification, the Austro-Prussian war and the great Eastern crisis of 1874-8. Despite the huge impact of these events, this is the first collection of primary material entirely devoted to the foreign policy of these governments. These documents permit a fuller understanding of mid-Victorian Britain's window on the world, as well as a thorough reappraisal of the dramatic clash between Disraeli and his Foreign Secretary, the fifteenth Earl of Derby. Recent renewed interest in this period among historians makes this publication a timely one.

The New York Times Book Review called John Charmley's previous book on Winston Churchill "entertaining, informative, and infuriating." With equally impressive scholarship, eloquence, and wit, Charmley now turns to the Anglo-American "special relationship" that was the cornerstone of Churchill's foreign policy, ruthlessly stripping away the myth to reveal the unsentimental reality of the Churchill years and beyond, from 1940 to 1957. Churchill carried on the war because of his misguided faith that U.S. help could be enlisted to save the British Empire, contends Charmley. President Roosevelt, however, sought an end to imperialism and thus entered the war only belatedly, ensuring that Britian would end the war weak and dependent on America. And Britian did indeed become a U.S. "pensioner"-a reality dramatically confirmed in 1956, when American pressure led to the removal of Prime Minister Anthony Eden. With vivid assessments of Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Churchill, and Eden, John Charmley brilliantly continues his though-provoking-and sometimes infuriating-ways.

This is an updated and revised edition of a lively account of British Conservativism, illuminated throughout by a concentration upon the men, and woman, who have led the Conservative party. It features a big name author with trade acumen and a lively and engaging writing style. It offers detailed history and analysis from 1830 to the present day, including a new chapter on David Cameron's leadership. It provides revisionist accounts of Peel, Disraeli and Churchill. The second edition of this successful text has been throughly updated to take into account recent research, and now begins at 1830. Charmley examines the history of the party and takes the story through the recent 'wilderness years' following the 1997 election fiasco, right up to David Cameron's leadership.