The Conservatives - A History - Softcover

"Astute, opinionated and unsentimental, Harris makes a robust and entertaining guide to the party's history." (The Sunday Times)

"Robin Harris combines a career of working for the party with the qualifications of a historian. He also writes beautifully, with a perilous sharpness. His account is highly entertaining." (The Daily Telegraph)

"A marvel of concision, lucidity and scholarship, with penetrating things to say about Peel, Disraeli, Churchill and the rest. His book can be read for pleasure as well as instruction." (The Spectator)

"Highly readable, with sparkling portraits of the leading figures, and the author's acerbic observations and pithy judgments, even when one does not agree with them, are always thought-provoking and sometimes pointed enough to make one laugh out loud...this is a good book. I am glad that it was written. And I'm glad that I read it." (The Times)

"My expectations for this book were high; but Dr. Harris has exceeded them. This book is genuine history written with real authority...finely written and highly readable, with an undercurrent of dry wit running through its narrative." (Conservative Home website)

The history of the Conservative party has, extraordinarily, rarely been written in a single volume for the general reader. There are academic multi-volume accounts and a multitude of smaller books with limited historical scope. But now, Robin Harris, Margaret Thatcher's speechwriter and party insider, has produced this authoritative but lively history book which tells the whole story and fills a gaping hole in Britain's historiographical record.

Taking as his starting point the larger than life personalities of the Conservative Party's leaders and prime ministers since its inception, Robin Harris's book also analyses the interconnected themes and issues which have dominated Conservative politics over the years. The careers of Peel, Disraeli, Salisbury, Baldwin, Chamberlain, Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Heath, Thatcher, Major, Hague and Cameron together amount to an alternative history of Britain since the early nineteenth century.

This landmark book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in history or politics, or anyone who has ever wondered how Britain came to be the nation it is today.