Investigates historic strands of conservative thought and responds to the radical changes which many think have transformed the Conservative party into a populist movement upholding English nationalism. All Souls College Oxford was one of the meeting points of English public intellectuals in the twentieth century. Its Fellows prided themselves on agreeing in everything except their opinions. They included Cabinet Ministers from all the three major parties, and academics of diverse political allegiances, who met for frank conversations and lively disagreements. Davenport-Hines investigates historic strands of conservative thought: aversion to rapid and disruptive change, mistrust of majority opinions, prizing of community loyalties and pride over the assertion of aggressive individualism, the recession of the Church of England, and the impact of militarism. Conservative Thinkers from All Souls College Oxford draws on the ideas of two conservative thinkers, 'Trimmer' Halifax and Michael Oakeshott, to examine the conservative assumptions, ideas, writings and influence of seven Fellows of All Souls from the last century. Their brands of conservatism regarded popular democracy as an unavoidable necessity which must be managed rather than loved. Their scepticism about the rule of the people was rooted in a meritocratic commitment to the government of the wise. They disliked plutocracy, regretted consumerism, and loathed sloppy and self-serving thought. All were more or less dissatisfied with the workings of the Westminster parliamentary model.

First Published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

From the bestselling and award-winning author of 'An English Affair', a dazzlingly original thematic biography which throws fresh light on the greatest economist of the twentieth century. John Maynard Keynes is the man who saved Britain from financial crisis not once but twice - over the course of two World Wars. He remains a highly influential figure, nearly 70 years after his death. But who was he? In this entertaining biography, Richard Davenport-Hines gives us the man behind the economics: the connoisseur, intellectual, public official and statesman who was equally at ease socialising with the Bloomsbury Group as he was persuading prime ministers and presidents. By exploring the desires and experiences that made Keynes think as he did, Davenport-Hines reveals the aesthetic basis of Keynesian economics, and explores why the ideas of this Great Briton continue to resonate so powerfully today.

From the bestselling author of 'An English Affair', a dazzlingly original thematic biography which throws fresh light on the greatest economist of the twentieth century. John Maynard Keynes is the man who saved Britain from financial crisis not once but twice - over the course of two World Wars. He remains a highly influential figure, nearly 70 years after his death. But who was he? In this entertaining biography, Richard Davenport-Hines gives us the man behind the economics: the connoisseur, intellectual, public official and statesman who was equally at ease socialising with the Bloomsbury Group as he was persuading prime ministers and presidents. By exploring the desires and experiences that made Keynes think as he did, Davenport-Hines reveals the aesthetic basis of Keynesian economics, and explores why the ideas of this Great Briton continue to resonate so powerfully today.

Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Profumo scandal, An English Affair is a sharp-focused snapshot of a nation on the brink of social revolution. Britain in 1963 - Harold Macmillan was the Prime Minister of a Conservative government, dedicated to tradition, hierarchy and, above all, old-fashioned morality. But a breakdown of social boundaries saw nightclub hostesses mixing with aristocrats, and middle-class professionals dabbling in criminality. Meanwhile, Cold War paranoia gripped the public imagination. The Profumo Affair was a perfect storm, and when it broke it rocked the Establishment. In 'An English Affair', the author of the critically-acclaimed 'Titainic Lives' Richard Davenport-Hines brings Swinging London to life. The cast of players includes the familiar - louche doctor Stephen Ward, good-time girls Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies, and Secretary for War John Profumo himself. But we also encounter the tabloid hacks, property developers and hangers-on whose roles have, until now, never been fully revealed. Sex, drugs, class, race, chequebook journalism and the criminal underworld - the Profumo Affair had it all. This is the story of how Sixties England cast off respectability and fell in love with scandal.

Beautiful heiress, accomplished flirt, aristocratic hostess, tragic mother, and Edwardian icon, Ettie Desborough is a fascinating but forgotten figure. She has been celebrated in countless memoirs but this is the first biography of her, based on private family archives and letters. Ettie Fane was born in 1867 and orphaned at three. At 20 she married Willie Grenfell, later Lord Desborough, a genial sportsman. Beautiful, rich, charming, and clever, she soon became the center of the group known as "the Souls" and a leading hostess at two magnificent country houses. She was the intimate friend of powerful leaders including Balfour, Curzon, and Churchill; the writers that she entertained included Wilde, Kipling, Wells, Yeats, and Sassoon. This is a portrait of a life which personified the last epoch of aristocratic glamour, elegance, and power that ended in 1914. But tragedy was not far away. In 1915 her son Julian died in France of war wounds. Six weeks later her second son Billy was killed in action. Her youngest son Ivo would be killed shortly after the war. Other deaths on the Western Front--of lovers and younger admirers--hurt her terribly too. But despite intense private misery, she reacted with outward courage and self-mastery. Grief revealed the greatness of her spirit. In the 1920s and 1930s she continued to collect new types, especially gifted young men, relishing people of all ages up to her death in 1952, a redoubtable survivor from a vanished age.

When they met in 1947 Trevor-Roper, a young historian at Christ Church, Oxford, was 33. Berenson, the world-famous art critic, was 82, frail but still intensely curious about the world. Trevor Roper promised to write to him and his letters continued until Berenson's death in in 1959. Elegantly constructed, beautifully and precisely written, they are shot through with high-octane malice, sharp judgements and blistering comments, and many wonderfully funny episodes. Trevor-Roper was an intellectual heavyweight, but the overall tone here is one of amusement at the human comedy', the vanity, snobbery and human weakness he sees all around him. At the same time he loves intrigue and controversy. Subjects range widely: several brilliant set-pieces on Oxford college elections, books, journalism, publishing, politics (postwar Europe, ex-Nazis and collaborators, the Cold War, Suez, etc), history and history-writing, personal life (including marriage to Earl Haig's daughter Alexandra after her messy divorce), travel, gossip, and so on. He has a memorable journey on a pilgrims' bus in Persia, goes behind the Iron Curtain to meet Communist dignitaries and speeds in his glamorous grey Bentley to visit duchesses in the Scottish borders. Figures in the letters include Evelyn Waugh, Isaiah Berlin, A.L. Rowse, Anthony Eden, Gerald Brenan, A.J.P.Taylor, Arnold Toynbee, Dimitri Shostakovitch, C.S. Lewis and Harold Macmillan.

A history of narcotics and illicit stimulants. Drawing on a wide array of sources, the book shows how narcotics such as opium, morphine, cannabis, heroine, cocaine, amphetamine, LSD and ecstasy came to have such an impact on western society and how, in turn, that society has attempted to cope with the arrival of each.;Although serious in purpose, the volume contains a range of strange, amusing and macabre stories. It reveals the intimate drug habits of Sir Christopher Wren, Sir Walter Scott, Dickens, Gladstone, Freud, George IV, Queen Victoria, Marilyn Monroe, John Kenneth Galbraith, W.H. Auden and Anthony Eden (to name just a few); the role of enterprises such as the East India Company, Jardine-Matheson and Glaxo in distributing drugs (especially opiates); the part played by war in expanding drug use; the origins of the different policies of Britain and the United States, Holland and Switzerland, Thailand and Indonesia; the routes by which narcotics are transported around the world (including an account of the murderous career of the Colombian cocaine warlord, Pablo Escobar); and the evolution of attitudes towards, and taboos about, illicit substances.

The first ever comprehensive single-volume history of narcotics and illicit stimulants.

First Published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

While many accounts of the Titanic's voyage focus on the technical or mechanical aspects of why the ship sank, Voyagers of the Titanic follows the stories of the men, women, and children whose lives intersected on the vessel's fateful last day, covering the full range of first, second, and third class--from plutocrats and captains of industry to cobblers and tailors looking for a better life in America.

Richard Davenport-Hines delves into the fascinating lives of those who ate, drank, reveled, dreamed, and died aboard this mythic ship. With magnificent prose, Voyagers of the Titanic also brings to life the untold stories of the ship's middle and third classes, each of whom had a story that not only illuminates the ship but also the times in which it sailed. The memory of this tragedy still remains a part of the American psyche and this book brings us back to that clear night with all its drama and pathos.

What pushed Blunt, Burgess, Cairncross, Maclean and Philby into Soviet hands? With access to recently released papers and other neglected documents, this sharp analysis of the intelligence world examines how and why these men and others betrayed their country and what this cost Britain and its allies. Enemies Within is a new history of the influence of Moscow on Britain told through the stories of those who chose to spy for the Soviet Union. It also challenges entrenched assumptions about abused trust, corruption and Establishment cover-ups that began with the Cambridge Five and the disappearance of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean on the night boat to Saint-Malo in 1951. In a book that is as intellectually thrilling as it is entertaining and illuminating, Richard Davenport-Hines traces the bonds between individuals, networks and organisations over generations to offer a study of character, both individual and institutional. At its core lie the operative traits of boarding schools, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Intelligence Division, Foreign Office, MI5, MI6 and Moscow Centre. Davenport-Hines tells many stories of espionage, counter-espionage and treachery. With its vast scope, ambition and scholarship, Enemies Within charts how the undermining of authority, the rejection of expertise and the suspicion of educational advantages began, and how these have transformed the social and political temper of modern Britain.

WINNER OF THE POLITICAL BOOK AWARDS POLITICAL HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2014.

Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Profumo scandal, An English Affair is a sharp-focused snapshot of a nation on the brink of social revolution.

Britain in 1963 Harold Macmillan was the Prime Minister of a Conservative government, dedicated to tradition, hierarchy and, above all, old-fashioned morality. But a breakdown of social boundaries saw nightclub hostesses mixing with aristocrats, and middle-class professionals dabbling in criminality. Meanwhile, Cold War paranoia gripped the public imagination.

The Profumo Affair was a perfect storm, and when it broke it rocked the Establishment. In An English Affair, the author of the critically-acclaimed Titainic Lives Richard Davenport-Hines brings Swinging London to life. The cast of players includes the familiar louche doctor Stephen Ward, good-time girls Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies, and Secretary for War John Profumo himself. But we also encounter the tabloid hacks, property developers and hangers-on whose roles have, until now, never been fully revealed.

Sex, drugs, class, race, chequebook journalism and the criminal underworld the Profumo Affair had it all. This is the story of how Sixties England cast off respectability and fell in love with scandal."

Marking the centenary of the Titanic disaster, 'Titanic Lives' is a fresh investigation of the lives of the passengers and crew on board the most famous ship in history. On the night of 14 April 1912, midway through her maiden voyage, the seemingly unsinkable Titanic hit an iceberg, sustaining a 300-feet gash as six compartments were wrenched open to the Atlantic Ocean. In little over two hours, the palatial liner nose-dived to the bottom of the sea. More than 1,500 people perished in the freezing waters. But who were they? In this impeccably researched and utterly riveting social history, Richard Davenport-Hines brings to life the stories of the men who built and owned the Titanic, the crew who serviced her and the passengers of all classes who sailed on her. We are introduced to this fascinating cast of characters and follow their lives on board the ship through to the supreme dramatic climax of the disaster. Universally critically acclaimed, 'Titanic Lives' is the must-read Titanic book of the centenary year.

As a British Intelligence Officer during World War II, Hugh Trevor-Roper was expressly forbidden from keeping a diary due to the sensitive and confidential nature of his work. However, he confided a record of his thoughts in a series of slender notebooks inscribed OHMS (On His Majesty's Service). The Wartime Journals reveal the voice and experiences of Trevor-Roper, a war-time 'backroom boy' who spent most of the war engaged in highly-confidential intelligence work in England - including breaking the cipher code of the German secret service, the Abwehr. He became an expert in German resistance plots and after the war interrogated many of Hitler's immediate circle, investigated Hitler's death in the Berlin bunker and personally retrieved Hitler's will from its secret hiding place. The posthumous discovery of Trevor-Roper's secret journals - unknown even to his family and closest confidants - is an exciting archival find and provides an unusual and privileged view of the Allied war effort against Nazi Germany. At the same time they offer an engaging - sometimes mischievous - and reflective study of both the human comedy and personal tragedy of wartime.

These private journals, made available here for the first time, record Hugh Trevor-Roper's visit to the People's Republic of China in the autumn of 1965, shortly before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, and describe the controversial aftermath of his journey on his return to England. The visit was a catalogue of frustrations, which he relates with the verve and irony of a master narrator who relished the human comedy. His efforts to meet the real life and mind of China, in whose history and politics he had long been interested, were blocked at every turn by the resources of state propaganda and the claustrophobic attention of sullen Party guides. The visit was arranged by the London-based Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding, which was ostensibly committed to the impartial interchange of culture and ideas. It proved to be run by a Communist claque whose ruthless methods of control outwitted the well-connected membership. Back in England, and with help from MI5, he resolved to get to the bottom of the society's affairs. His investigations provoked a tumultuous public row which Trevor-Roper, no shirker of controversy, zestfully traces in these pages. Through the book, which closes with an account of his visit to Taiwan and South-East Asia in 1967, there runs the wisdom of historical perspective that he brought to contemporary events and his lifelong commitment to the defence of liberal values and practices against their ideological adversaries.

The one hundred letters brought together for this book illustrate the range of Hugh Trevor-Roper's life and preoccupations: as an historian, a controversialist, a public intellectual, an adept in academic intrigues, a lover of literature, a traveller, a countryman. They depict a life of rich diversity; a mind of intellectual sparkle and eager curiosity; a character that relished the comedie humaine, and the absurdities, crotchets, and vanities of his contemporaries. The playful irony of Trevor-Roper's correspondence places him in a literary tradition stretching back to such great letter-writers as Madame de Sevigne and Horace Walpole. Though he generally shunned emotional self-exposure in correspondence as in company, his letters to the woman who became his wife reveal the surprising intensity and the raw depths of his feelings. Trevor-Roper was one of the most gifted scholars of his generation, and one of the most famous dons of his day. While still a young man, he made his name with his bestseller The Last Days of Hitler, and became notorious for his acerbic assaults on other historians. In his prime, Trevor-Roper appeared to have everything: a grey Bentley, a prestigious chair in Oxford, a beautiful country house, a wife with a title, and, eventually, a title of his own. But he failed to write the 'big book' expected of him, and tainted his reputation when in old age he erroneously authenticated the forged Hitler diaries. For an academic, Trevor-Roper's interests were extraordinarily wide, bringing him into contact with such diverse individuals as George Orwell and Margaret Thatcher, Albert Speer and Kim Philby, Katharine Hepburn and Rupert Murdoch. The tragicomedy of his tenure as Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, provided an appropriate finale to a career packed with incident. Trevor-Roper's letters to Bernard Berenson, published as Letters from Oxford in 2006, gave pleasure to a wide variety of readers. This more general selection of his correspondence has been long anticipated, and will delight anyone who values wit, erudition, and clear prose.

Spanning five centuries and several continents in a sweeping portrait of addiction, "The Pursuit of Oblivion" traces the history of the use and abuse of narcotics, revealing their subtle transformation from untested medicines to sources of idle pleasure and, relatively recently, to illegal substances. Richard Davenport-Hines, an eminent, prize-winning historian, uncovers the centrality of drug abuse in our modern industrial society, from the drug habits of Charles Dickens and John F. Kennedy to today's $400 billion annual worldwide trade in illicit drugs (the same volume as the oil industry). A vivid portrayal of the people and events that have shaped the history of narcotics, "The Pursuit of Oblivion" reveals that, contrary to the assumption underlying current drug policies, our need to escape reality and our body's need for physical pleasure are both ineradicable aspects of our humanity, unchangeable by government initiative.

A masterful biography of one of the greatest English poets and most compelling literary figures of the 20th century, Auden is the first to take the full measure of the poet's achievements, his insatiable thirst for experience, his navigation between the needs of discipline and the lure of his addictions and lusts. of photos.

The one hundred letters brought together for this book illustrate the range of Hugh Trevor-Roper's life and preoccupations: as an historian, a controversialist, a public intellectual, an adept in academic intrigues, a lover of literature, a traveller, a countryman. They depict a life of rich diversity; a mind of intellectual sparkle and eager curiosity; a character that relished the comedie humaine, and the absurdities, crotchets, and vanities of his contemporaries. The playful irony of Trevor-Roper's correspondence places him in a literary tradition stretching back to such great letter-writers as Madame de Sevigne and Horace Walpole. Though he generally shunned emotional self-exposure in correspondence as in company, his letters to the woman who became his wife reveal the surprising intensity and the raw depths of his feelings. Trevor-Roper was one of the most gifted scholars of his generation, and one of the most famous dons of his day. While still a young man, he made his name with his bestseller The Last Days of Hitler, and became notorious for his acerbic assaults on other historians. In his prime, Trevor-Roper appeared to have everything: a grey Bentley, a prestigious chair in Oxford, a beautiful country house, a wife with a title, and, eventually, a title of his own. But he failed to write the 'big book' expected of him, and tainted his reputation when in old age he erroneously authenticated the forged Hitler diaries. For an academic, Trevor-Roper's interests were extraordinarily wide, bringing him into contact with such diverse individuals as George Orwell and Margaret Thatcher, Albert Speer and Kim Philby, Katharine Hepburn and Rupert Murdoch. The tragicomedy of his tenure as Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, provided an appropriate finale to a career packed with incident. Trevor-Roper's letters to Bernard Berenson, published as Letters from Oxford in 2006, gave pleasure to a wide variety of readers. This more general selection of his correspondence has been long anticipated, and will delight anyone who values wit, erudition, and clear prose.

The acclaimed Penguin Monarchs series: short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers - now in paperback Like his mother Queen Victoria, Edward VII defined an era. Both reflected the personalities of their central figures: hers grand, imperial and pretty stiff; his no less grand, but much more relaxed and enjoyable. This book conveys Edward's distinct personality and significant influences. To the despair of his parents, he rebelled as a young man, conducting many affairs and living a life of pleasure. But as king he made a distinct contribution to European diplomacy and - which is little known - to London, laying out the Mall and Admiralty Arch. Richard Davenport-Hines's book is as enjoyable as its subject and the age he made.

On April 14, 1912, the Titanic, a passenger liner traveling from Southhampton, England, to New York City, struck an iceberg. Its sinking brought the ship--mythological in name and size--into one-hundred years of infamy.

Of the 2,240 people aboard the ship, 1,517 perished. While many accounts focus on the technical aspects of the Titanic's sinking, Voyagers of the Titanic follows the stories of the men, women, and children whose lives intersected on its fateful last day. Covering the range of first, second, and third class--from plutocrats and captains of industry to cobblers and tailors looking for a better life in America--Richard Davenport-Hines delves into the fascinating lives of those who ate, drank, dreamed, and died abroad the mythic ship. With magnificent prose, he also explores the politics behind the Titanic's creation, involving larger-than-life figures like J.P. Morgan, the ship's owner, and Lord Pirrie, the ship's builder.

The memory of the ship's sinking still remains a part of the American psyche and Voyagers of the Titanic brings that clear night back to us with all of its drama and pathos.

Superbly readable and revealing letters, full of malice and gossip, from a master historian When they met in 1947 Trevor-Roper, a young historian at Christ Church, Oxford, was 33. Berenson, the world-famous art critic, was 82, frail but still intensely curious about the world. Trevor Roper promised to write to him and his letters continued until Berenson's death in in 1959. Elegantly constructed, beautifully and precisely written, they are shot through with high-octane malice, sharp judgements and blistering comments, and many wonderfully funny episodes. Trevor-Roper was an intellectual heavyweight, but subjects range widely: several brilliant set-pieces on Oxford college elections, books, journalism, publishing, politics (postwar Europe, ex-Nazis and collaborators, the Cold War, Suez, etc), history and history-writing, personal life (including marriage to Earl Haig's daughter Alexandra after her messy divorce), travel, gossip, and so on. He has a memorable journey on a pilgrims' bus in Persia, goes behind the Iron Curtain to meet Communist dignitaries and speeds in his glamorous grey Bentley to visit duchesses in the Scottish borders. Figures in the letters include Evelyn Waugh, Isaiah Berlin, A.L. Rowse, Anthony Eden, Gerald Brenan, A.J.P.Taylor, Arnold Toynbee, Dimitri Shostakovitch, C.S. Lewis and Harold Macmillan.