Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography

With unequaled authority and dramatic detail, the first volume of Charles Moore’s authorized biography of Margaret Thatcher reveals as never before the early life, rise to power, and initial period as prime minister of the woman who transformed Britain and the world in the late twentieth century. 

Moore illuminates Thatcher’s youth—her relationship with her parents and early romantic attachments, including her courtship and marriage to Denis Thatcher—moving forward to the determination and boldness that marked even the very beginning of her political career. His account of her political relationship with Ronald Reagan is riveting. Throughout Moore explores in compelling detail the obstacles and indignities that Thatcher encountered as a woman in what was still overwhelmingly a man’s world. 

A clear-eyed, fair account, conveying Thatcher’s remarkable talents and sometimes infuriating qualities, Moore’s portrait enlivens the woman who was prime minister for more than a decade (1979-1990), re-creating the circumstances and experiences that shaped one of the most significant world leaders of the postwar era.

Author Biography

Charles Moore was born in 1965 and educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read history. He joined the staff of The Daily Telegraph in 1979, the year Margaret Thatcher came to power, and as a political columnist in the 1980s, he covered several years of Thatcher’s first and second governments. From 1984 to 1990 he was editor of The Spectator; from 1992 to 1995, editor of The Sunday Telegraph; and from 1995 to 2003, editor of The Daily Telegraph, for which he is still a regular columnist. He lives in Sussex.