British Conservative Leaders - Couverture rigide

As the party that has won wars, reversed recessions and held prime ministerial power more times than any other, the Conservatives have played an undoubtedly crucial role in the shaping of contemporary British society. And yet, the leaders who have stood at its helm - from Sir Robert Peel to David Cameron, via Benjamin Disraeli, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher - have steered the party vessel with enormously varying degrees of success.

With the widening of the franchise, revolutionary changes to social values and the growing ubiquity of the media, the requirements, techniques and goals of Conservative leadership since the party's nineteenth-century factional breakaway have been forced to evolve almost beyond recognition - and not all its leaders have managed to keep up.

This comprehensive and enlightening book considers the attributes and achievements of each leader in the context of their respective time and diplomatic landscape, offering a compelling analytical framework by which they may be judged, detailed personal biographies from some of the country's foremost political critics, and exclusive interviews with former leaders themselves.

An indispensable contribution to the study of party leadership, British Conservative Leaders is the essential guide to understanding British political history and governance through the prism of those who created it.

Contributing authors include Matthew d Ancona, Tim Bale, Stuart Ball, Jim Buller, John Campbell, John Charmley, Charles Clarke, Mark Davies, Patrick Diamond, David Dutton, Dr Mark Garnett, Richard A. Gaunt, William Hague, Angus Hawkins, Timothy Heppell, Andrew Holt, Michael Howard, Toby S. James, Nigel Keohane, Jo-Anne Nadler, T. G. Otte, Anne Perkins, Robert Saunders, Anthony Seldon, Andrew Taylor, D. R. Thorpe and Alan Wager.

Charles Clarke was Member of Parliament for Norwich South from 1997 to 2010. He served as Education Minister from 1998 and then in the Home Office from 1999 to 2001. From 2002 to 2004 he was Secretary of State for Education and Skills and then Home Secretary until 2006. He holds visiting professorships at the University of East Anglia, Lancaster University, and University College London.

Dr Toby James is Senior Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics at the University of East Anglia.

Patrick Diamond is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, Senior Research Fellow at Policy Network and Gwilym Gibbon Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. He was formerly Head of Policy Planning in 10 Downing Street and Senior Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister. He is the co-author of Beyond New Labour; Social Justice in the Global Age; After the Third Way; and Global Europe, Social Europe (with Anthony Giddens).

Tim Bale teaches Political Science at Queen Mary, University of London in the UK. In 2008 he won the Political Studies Association's Bernard Crick Prize for Outstanding Teaching. He was the co-founder of the PSA's specialist group on Conservatives and Conservatism. He also provides an Internet Guide to European Politics to accompany his book, European Politics: a Comparative Introduction. Tim's media work includes writing for the Financial Times and the Guardian, and he has appeared on various BBC radio and television programmes. In 2011 he received the Political Studies Association's W.J.M. Mackenzie prize for his book The Conservative Party from Thatcher to Cameron.