John Major: The Autobiography

John Major: The Autobiography
Author: John Major
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 908
Release: 2013-02-21
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0007400462

‘The best memoir by a senior politician for years.’ Simon Jenkins, Sunday Times

John Major

John Major
Author: John Major
Publisher: Harper
Total Pages: 800
Release: 1999-11-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780060196141

John Major's autobiography is one of the most personal and revealing ever written by a former British Prime Minister. Eagerly awaited, the remarkable story of his life, from an extraordinary childhood to becoming an influential leader at the forefront of global politics and subsequent fall, is candid, scrupulous, and unsparing. With complete candor and compelling insight, Major describes how he left school at fifteen, was unemployed, and through hard work and determination was elected to Parliament as a member of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party, which would transform Britain. Quickly becoming one of Thatcher's Cabinet members, he served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Foreign Secretary, and then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the powerful position from which he vaulted to Prime Minister in 1990 when, after Thatcher fell, he fought and won a shrewd campaign to succeed her. Major vividly recounts his role in shaping some of the most profound world events, including conferring with George Bush on the Gulf War, making the most decisive steps in a generation toward peace in Northern Ireland, leading Britain through the formation of the European Upon, and calling a general election in 1992 in which his party won the most votes in British political history. Yet within months of the 1992 election his government was in troubled waters, and Major is candid about his difficulties and losses and the controversies and divisions within his own party. Through it all, including the landslide defeat of his Conservative Party on May 1, 1997, and his immediate stepping down as party leader and Prime Minister, John Major acted with a dignity rare in politics. As he talks about his leadership triumphs and defeats and his work with a diverse range of inter-national figures including George Bush, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, Helmut Kohl, and Nelson Mandela, he offers invaluable insight into how political power is exercised both in the United Kingdom and abroad. Here is a fascinating story of a man, his passion for politics, and the genuine and significant contributions he has made to the lives ofthe British and people around the world.

John Major

John Major
Author: John Major
Publisher:
Total Pages: 848
Release: 2000
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Major's early life was extraordinary; his rise through Parliament meteoric. Soon a favourite of Margaret Thatcher, he became Foreign Secretary and then Chancellor of the Exchequer. When Thatcher fell, he fought and won a shrewd campaign to succeed her.

For the Record

For the Record
Author: David Cameron
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 1076
Release: 2019-09-24
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0062687859

David Cameron was elected Conservative leader in 2005, promising to modernize the party following its three successive electoral defeats. He became Prime Minister in 2010, forming Britain’s first coalition government in 70 years, at a moment of economic crisis, and went on to win the first outright Conservative majority for 23 years at the 2015 general election. In For the Record, he will explain how the governments he led transformed the UK economy while implementing a modern, compassionate agenda that included reforming education and welfare, legalizing gay marriage, honoring the UK’s commitment to overseas aid and spearheading environmental policies. He will shed light on the seminal world events of his premiership—the Arab Spring; the rise of ISIS; the invasion of Ukraine; the conflicts in Libya, Iraq and Syria—as well as events at home, from the Olympic Games in 2012 to the Scottish referendum. He will provide, for the first time, his perspective on the EU referendum and his views on the future of Britain’s place in the world following Brexit. Revealing the battles and achievements of his life and career in intimate and frank detail, For the Record will be an important assessment of the significant political events of the last decade, the nature of power and the role of leadership at a time of profound global change.

The Course of My Life

The Course of My Life
Author: Edward Heath
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 1118
Release: 2011-09-28
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1448204666

The Course of My Life is not only the autobiography of one of the most distinguished figures of modern times, but a revealing panoply of twentieth-century political, international and social history. Born in 1916, Edward Heath became a Conservative Member of Parliament in 1950, following a glittering Oxford and military career, and was at the heart of political life for a long time - as Chief Whip (notably during the Suez Crisis), Minister of Labour, Lord Privy Seal at the Foreign Office, Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965-75, and Prime Minister from 1970 to 1974. Since relinquishing the leadership in 1975, he has maintained a central role in world affairs, as well as pursuing his wide musical and sailing interests. Edward Heath writes his autobiography with complete (and often very amusing) candour, offering us valuable and entertaining insights into the events of the past sixty years. He describes the importance of a united Europe, one of the driving influences in his life since he observed a Nuremberg Rally as an undergraduate, and his continuing thoughts on the subject after he took us into the European Community in the 1970s. He discusses the changes in the Conservative Party in his period as an MP and his modernisation of it as its leader, and the major issues of domestic policy, not least the economy, the trade unions and the Troubles in Northern Ireland; these are set against his range of activities on the international stage, including his negotiations with China and Saddam Hussein, shortly before the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1991. Both as a record of a momentous and unequalled career and as an important and frank document of personalities and events, The Course of My Life is as entertaining as it is revealing.

The Downing Street Years

The Downing Street Years
Author: Margaret Thatcher
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 753
Release: 2011-01-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 006202910X

This first volume of Margaret Thatcher's memoirs encompasses the whole of her time as Prime Minister - the formation of her goals in the early 1980s, the Falklands, the General Election victories of 1983 and 1987 and, eventually, the circumstances of her fall from political power. She also gives frank accounts of her dealings with foreign statesmen and her own ministers.

The Autobiography

The Autobiography
Author: Margaret Thatcher
Publisher: HarperPress
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre: Great Britain
ISBN: 9780007338405

Margaret Thatcher, arguable the most significant figure of the late-twentieth-century British politics, died on 8 April 2013. Combining and abridging her memoirs 'The Path to Power' and 'The Downing Street Years', this definitive account of Margaret Thatcher's life is published as a one volume commemorative edition.

I Came As a Shadow

I Came As a Shadow
Author: John Thompson
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2020-12-15
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1250619343

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK The long-awaited autobiography from Georgetown University’s legendary coach, whose life on and off the basketball court threw America’s unresolved struggle with racial justice into sharp relief. John Thompson was never just a basketball coach and I Came As A Shadow is categorically not just a basketball autobiography. After five decades at the center of race and sports in America, Thompson—the iconic NCAA champion, Black activist, and educator—was ready to make the private public at last, and he completed this autobiography shortly before his death in the historically tumultuous summer of 2020. Chockful of stories and moving beyond mere stats (three Final Fours, four-time national coach of the year, seven Big East championships, 97 percent graduation rate), Thompson’s book drives us through his childhood under Jim Crow segregation to our current moment of racial reckoning. We experience riding shotgun with Celtics icon Red Auerbach and coaching NBA Hall of Famers like Patrick Ewing and Allen Iverson. What were the origins of the the phrase “Hoya Paranoia”? You’ll see. And parting his veil of secrecy, Thompson brings us into his negotiation with a D.C. drug kingpin in his players’ orbit in the 1980s, as well as behind the scenes of his years on the Nike board. Thompson’s mother was a teacher who had to clean houses because of racism in the nation's capital. His father could not read or write. Their son grew up to be a man with his own larger-than-life statue in a building that bears his family’s name on a campus once kept afloat by the selling of 272 enslaved Black people. This is a great American story, and John Thompson’s experience sheds light on many of the issues roiling our nation. In these pages, he proves himself to be the elder statesman whose final words college basketball and the country need to hear. I Came As A Shadow is not a swan song, but a bullhorn blast from one of America’s most prominent sons.

The Responsibilities of Democracy

The Responsibilities of Democracy
Author: Nick Clegg
Publisher: Haus Publishing
Total Pages: 56
Release: 2020-04-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1912208741

Democracy operates on consent. That means politicians have an obligation to present and argue their causes in order to ultimately win consensus. Above all, democracy requires honesty—in facing up to challenges, acknowledging fears and dangers, and admitting the limitations of government. But democracy has its flaws, not least in the lack of efficiency in the decision-making process. Amid pressing questions about the nature and limits of democracy, both in Britain and beyond, The Responsibilities of Democracy provides a clear-eyed perspective shared by two former politicians. Two central figures of the British political establishment, John Major and Nick Clegg, share their thoughts on where democracy is heading and how it can survive in the twenty-first century. Offering his perspective as a former prime minister, Major writes of the qualities on which a healthy democracy depends and expresses his deep concerns about the declining decorum of political exchange. Clegg brings a counter-perspective in discussing the ways in which political language has always involved trading insults and argues that echo chambers, although now more sophisticated, are nothing new. Compromise, Clegg insists, is not betrayal, but is instead the very substance of our politics and our democracy. The Responsibilities of Democracy explores the overall health of UK democracy, giving a balanced analysis of its values and flaws. It is also a clarion call to the electorate and politicians to nurture and protect the precious values on which democracy depends.

A Journey

A Journey
Author: Tony Blair
Publisher: Hutchinson Radius
Total Pages: 718
Release: 2011
Genre: Ex-prime ministers
ISBN: 9780091925567

In 1997, Tony Blair won the biggest Labour victory in history to sweep the party to power and end 18 years of Conservative government. He has been one of the most dynamic leaders of modern times; few British prime ministers have shaped the nation's course as profoundly as Blair during his ten years in power, and his achievements and his legacy will be debated for years to come. Now his memoirs reveal in intimate detail this unique political and personal journey, providing an insight into the man, the politician and the statesman, and charting successes, controversies and disappointments with an extraordinary candour.