Eden: The Life and Times of Anthony Eden, First Earl of Avon, 1897-1977

Anthony Eden, who served as both Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, was one of the central political figures of the twentieth century. This ground- breaking book examines his controversial life and tells the inside story of the Munich crisis (1938), the Geneva Conference (1954) and the Suez crisis (1956). Churchill’s role throughout Eden’s career is shown in an entirely new light. Born in the year of Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee (1897), Eden died in the year of Queen Elizabeth’s silver jubilee (1977). He had good looks, charm, a Military Cross from the Great War, an Oxford first and a secure parliamentary constituency from his mid-twenties. He was Foreign Secretary by 38, and the first British statesman to meet Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. Eden’s dramatic resignation from Neville Chamberlain’s Cabinet in 1938, outlined here in the fullest detail yet, made an international impact. After the outbreak of hostilities, he was brought back into government, and served as Churchill’s principal lieutenant throughout the Second World War. This book provides an absorbing study of Eden’s battles with Churchill over the modernisation of the post-war Conservative Party, and his rivalry with Butler and Macmillan in the early 1950s, culminating in a fascinating analysis of the Suez crisis. As one of Eden’s own ministers put it, ‘Whereas 'Suez’ as a method of removing Nasser was always a non-starter, as a way of removing Eden it was brilliant.‘Eden gives a vivid portrait not only of the political atmosphere of Britain in one of the most dramatic periods in its history, but also of the social and artistic life of a vanished age - from Eden’s first weekend visit to George V’s Sandringham, to his wartime dinner party at which No-l Coward first tried out his new song 'London Pride’.