Margaret Thatcher: From Grantham to the Falklands

Starred review from June 1, 2013
The authorized, remarkably evenhanded biography of the grimly divisive, late Iron Lady of Britain. Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), by Fleet Street journalist and debut author Moore's account, was not one for the examined life. Like her friend Ronald Reagan, she acted and then moved on, stopping only for an occasional moment of self-criticism for, say, not having been better prepared for a Parliamentary question-and-answer session. And act she did, introducing schemes of privatization and austerity, busting unions, giving aid and comfort to white apartheid regimes in southern Africa--though, Moore hastens to note, her written reference to a "nigger brown" frock was just a garden-variety expression of the time. One feels for the author, given his subject's lack of self-reflection and paucity of written records, for Thatcher was no writer save for heavily underlined, exclamatory do-this and do-that directives on pieces of paper handed to her. Nonetheless, Moore acquits himself well in this respectful but certainly not hagiographic account. If it's not entirely warts-and-all, it reckons with some of the darker aspects of her time in power, including her habit of conducting periodic purges to weed out the ideologically suspect within her ranks, as well as some poor and even possibly criminal decisions, such as the sinking of the Argentine ship Belgrano in the early days of the Falklands War. That Thatcher enjoyed far from universal popular support was clear in the aftermath of her recent death, but Moore is correct to note that the relentlessly self-made, all-controlling leader enjoyed a great boost thanks to the Falklands War, which "established [her] personal mastery of the political scene, and convinced people of her special gifts of leadership." Well-balanced, though not likely to sway either detractors or admirers one way or another. We look forward to the planned sequel, covering the years of Thatcher's political decline.

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June 1, 2013
Gird your loins! Because unless you are fanatical about twentieth-century British politics, the last page of this hulking biographythis being only the first of two volumeswill remain out of reach. Authorized here means Moore was granted full access to Lady Thatcher (who, it will be remembered, is only recently deceased) and to her private papers; what it means to the reader is that the treatment is neither unvarnished nor uncritical. Everyone knows Margaret Thatcher was the longest servingand first femaleprime minister of Great Britain, and everyone knows of her legendary reputation for being the Iron Lady and the supposedly compassionless manner in which she ran the country during her tenure at 10 Downing Street. What we learn here, in exacting detail, are the makings of a single-minded politico who conceived early on her prescription for the ills of Britain and let other aspects of her life take second place to achieving the government positions in which she could see her ideas through. The thorough lesson in the fine points of British government that this massive treatment becomes will leave Thatcher admirers set in their beliefs, while Thatcher detractors will see what they want to see in the book. Middle-grounders, then, will get the most out of it, for their sense of both the good and the bad within the woman will be sustained. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Thatcher's recent death has heightened interest in the late prime minister.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)