Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) was the dominant British political leader of our age. No postwar prime minister has equalled the impact she made on modern British history, nor matched her influence on the European and world stages. But, as she becomes a historical figure, how to distinguish myth from reality? The daunting quantity (and variable quality) of literature already available on Thatcher makes it decidedly difficult to discriminate the significant from the tendentious, superficial, and otiose. Moreover, because no comparable British politician has had such profound effects on political and cultural life, valuable evaluations of Thatcher originate from a broad range of scholarly disciplines, as well as from serious sources outside the academy. To make some sense of these widely dispersed materials, Routledge announces the first in a projected new series of Critical Assessments of Key Political Leaders.
Edited by Tim Bale (Queen Mary, University of London), the author of a prize-winning history of the Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher is a four-volume collection. It draws on the best work of modern historians and political scientists, as well as those working in gender and cultural studies. The collection allows users quickly and easily to access both established and cutting-edge assessments of Thatcher’s life and work. With a comprehensive introductory essay providing essential background information and relating the various pieces to each other, Margaret Thatcher is destined to be an indispensable resource for research and study.
Volume I
1. Jon Agar, ‘Thatcher, Scientist’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 2011, 65, 3, 215–32.
2. Richard Aldous, ‘Even More of a Wimp Than Jimmy Carter’, Reagan and Thatcher: The Difficult Relationship (Arrow, March 2013), pp. 95–126.
3. Tim Bale, ‘Betrayal: 1970–74’, The Conservatives Since 1945 (Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 152–85.
4. Jenny Bourne, ‘"May We Bring Harmony"? Thatcher’s Legacy on "Race"’, Race and Class, 2013, 55, 1, 87–91.
5. Jim Bulpitt, ‘The Discipline of the New Democracy: Mrs Thatcher’s Domestic Statecraft’, Political Studies, 1986, 34, 1, 19–39.
6. Bea Campbell, ‘To Be or Not to Be a Woman’, The Iron Ladies (Virago, 1987), pp. 233–47.
7. Chris Patten, ‘The Thatcher Years’, in Alastair Cooke (ed.), Tory Policy Making: The Conservative Research Department, 1929–2009 (CRD, 2009), pp. 79–93.
8. Alan Clark, Diaries: In Power 1983–1992 (Phoenix, 1994), pp. 341–69.
9. Peter Clarke, ‘The Rise and Fall of Thatcherism’, Historical Research, 1999, 72, 179, 301–22.
10. James Cooper, ‘The Foreign Politics of Opposition: Margaret Thatcher and the Transatlantic Relationship Before Power’, Contemporary British History, 2010, 24, 1, 23–42.
11. P. Cowley and M. Bailey, ‘Peasants Uprising or Religious War? Re-examining the 1975 Conservative Leadership Contest’, British Journal of Political Science, 2002, 30, 4, 599–629.
12. Percy Cradock, ‘The Prime Minister’, In Pursuit of British Interests (John Murray, 1997), pp. 19–25.
13. Ivor Crewe, ‘Has the Electorate Become Thatcherite?’, in Robert Skidelsky (ed.), Thatcherism (Blackwell, 1988), pp. 25–49.
14. Andrew Dodd, ‘Margaret Thatcher and German Reunification’, in P. Bormann, T. Freiberger, and J. Michel (eds.), Angst in den Internationalen Beziehungen (Bonn University Press, 2010), pp. 115–30.
15. Peter Dorey, ‘One Step at a Time: The Conservative Government’s Approach to the Reform of Industrial Relations Since 1979’, Political Quarterly, 1993, 64, 1, 24–36.
16. Stephen Benedict Dyson, ‘Cognitive Style and Foreign Policy: Margaret Thatcher’s Black-and-White Thinking’, International Political Science Review, 2009, 30, 1, 33–48.
17. Brendan Evans and Andrew Taylor, ‘The Debate About Conservatism’, From Salisbury to Major (Manchester University Press, 1999), pp. 219–47.
18. Brendan Evans, ‘Thatcherism and the British People’, in Stuart Ball and Ian Holliday (eds.), Mass Conservatism: The Conservatives and the Public Since 1880 (Frank Cass, 2002), pp. 218–42.
19. Stephen Evans, ‘Thatcher and the Victorians: A Suitable Case for Comparison?’, History, 1997, 82, 268, 601–20.
Volume ii
20. Stephen Farrall and Colin Hay, ‘Not So Tough on Crime? Why Weren’t the Thatcher Governments More Radical in Reforming the Criminal Justice System?’, British Journal of Criminology, 2010, 50, 3, 550–69.
21. A. Gamble, ‘The Legacies of Thatcherism’, The Free Economy and the Strong State: The Politics of Thatcherism (Macmillan, 1988), pp. 207–56.
22. Geoffrey Garrett, ‘The Political Consequences of Thatcherism’, Political Behaviour, 1992, 14, 4, 361–82.
23. Ian Gilmour, ‘Poverty’, Dancing with Dogma (Simon and Schuster, 1992), pp. 104–41.
24. E. H. H. Green, ‘Thatcherism: An Historical Perspective’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 1999, 9, 17–42.
25. Stuart Hall, ‘The Great Moving Right Show’, in Stuart Hall and Martin Jacques (eds.), The Politics of Thatcherism (Lawrence & Wishart, 1983), pp. 19–39.
26. Marcus K. Harmes, ‘A Creature Not Quite of This World: Adaptations of Margaret Thatcher on 1980s British Televisions’, Journal of Popular Television, 2013, 1, 1, 53–68.
27. Robin Harris, ‘Silence’, Not for Turning: The Life of Margaret Thatcher (Bantam, 2013), pp. 404–33.
28. Brian Harrison, ‘Mrs Thatcher and the Intellectuals’, Twentieth Century British History, 1994, 5, 2, 206–45.
29. Colin Hay, ‘Chronicles of a Death Foretold: The Winter of Discontent and Construction of the Crisis of British Keynesianism’, Parliamentary Affairs, 2010, 63, 3, 446–70.
30. Richard Heffernan, ‘Thatcherism and the Reinvention of Labour’, New Labour and Thatcherism: Political Change in Britain (Palgrave, 2001), pp. 159–78.
31. Peter Hennessy, ‘A Tigress Surrounded by Hamsters’, The Prime Minister (Allen Lane, 2000), pp. 397–437.
32. Sylvia Horton, ‘Local Government 1979–89: A Decade of Change’, in Stephen P. Savage and Lynton Robins (eds.), Public Policy Under Thatcher (Palgrave Macmillan, 1990), pp. 176–9, 184–5.
33. Ray Hudson, ‘Thatcherism and its Geographical Legacies: The New Map of Socio‐spatial Inequality in the Divided Kingdom’, Geographical Journal, 2013, 179, 4, 377–81.
34. Dominic Janes, ‘One of Us: The Queer Afterlife of Margaret Thatcher as a Gay Icon’, International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 2012, 8, 2–3, 211–27.
35. S. Jenkins, ‘Thatcher’s Legacy’, Political Studies Review (symposium on Thatcherism), 2007, 5/2, 161–71.
Volume Iii
36. Dennis Kavanagh, ‘The Legacy’, The Reordering of British Politics (Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 110–40.
37. P. Kerr and D. Marsh, ‘Explaining Thatcherism: Towards a Multi-dimensional Approach’, in D. Marsh, J. Buller, C. Hay, J. Johnston, P. Kerr, S. McAnulla, and M. Watson (eds.), Postwar British Politics in Perspective (Polity Press, 1999), pp. 168–88.
38. Daniel James Lahey, ‘The Thatcher Government’s Response to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, 1979–1980’, Cold War History, 2013, 13, 1, 21–42.
39. Lord Lawson and Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, ‘Cabinet Government in the Thatcher Years’, Contemporary Record, 1994, 8/3, 440–52.
40. Shirley Robin Letwin, ‘The Vigorous Virtues’, The Anatomy of Thatcherism (Flamingo, 1992), pp. 26–48.
41. Philip Lynch, ‘Race and Immigration’, The Politics of Nationhood (Macmillan, 1999), pp. 131–53.
42. David Marsh and R. A. W. Rhodes (eds.), ‘Implementation Gap’, Implementing Thatcherite Policies: Audit of an Era (Open University Press, 1992), pp. 170–87.
43. R. Martin, ‘The Economy’, in P. Cloke (ed.), Policy and Change in Thatcher’s Britain (Pergamon Press, 1992), pp. 123–58.
44. Ronald Millar, ‘All the World’s a Speech’, A View From the Wings: West End, West Coast, Westminster (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993), pp. 274–94.
45. Charles Moore, ‘Love and War at Oxford’, Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography (Allen Lane, 2013), pp. 40–65.
46. Marc Mulholland, ‘Just Another Country? The Irish Question in the Thatcher Years’, in Ben Jackson and Robert Saunders (eds.), Making Thatcher’s Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 180–97.
47. Helmut Norpoth, ‘The Popularity of the Thatcher Government: A Matter of War and Economy’, in Helmut Norpoth, Michael S. Lewis-Beck, and Jean-Dominique Lafay (eds.), Economics and Politics: The Calculus of Support (University of Michigan Press, 1991), pp. 141–60.
48. Philip Norton, ‘"The Lady’s Not For Turning": But What About the Rest? Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party, 1979–89’, Parliamentary Affairs, 1990, 43, 1, 41–58.
49. Heather Nunn, ‘Let our Children Grow Tall’, Thatcher, Politics and Fantasy (Lawrence and Wishart, 2003), pp. 95–113.
50. Charles J. Pattie, Ronald John Johnston, and E. Fieldhouse. ‘Gaining on the Swings? The Changing Geography of the Flow-of-the-Vote and Government Fortunes in British General Elections, 1979–1992’, Regional Studies, 1994, 28, 2, 141–54.
51. Douglas M. Ponton, ‘The Female Political Leader: A Study of Gender-identity in the Case of Margaret Thatcher’, Journal of Language and Politics, 2010, 9, 2, 195–218.
52. John Ranelagh, ‘Political and Civil Servants’, Thatcher’s People (Fontana, 1992), pp. 238–57.
Volume Iv
53. Margaret Reid, ‘Mrs Thatcher and the City’, in Dennis Kavanagh and Anthony Seldon, The Thatcher Effect: A Decade of Change (Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 49–63.
54. Tim Renton, ‘Autumn 1990’, Chief Whip (Politicos, 2004), pp. 73–121.
55. Paul Routledge, ‘A Very Spooky Coup’, Public Servant. Secret Agent (4th Estate, 2003), pp. 251–68.
56. Paul Sharp, ‘Thatcher’s Statesmanship’, Thatcher’s Diplomacy: The Revival of British Foreign Policy (St Martin’s Press, 1997), pp. 225–46.
57. Martin J. Smith, ‘The Core Executive and the Resignation of Mrs Thatcher’, Public Administration, 1994, 72, 3, 341–63.
58. Richard Stevens, ‘The Evolution of Privatisation as an Electoral Policy’, Contemporary British History, 2004, 18/2, 47–75.
59. Rune Stubager, ‘Preference‐shaping: An Empirical Test’, Political Studies, 2003, 51, 2, 241–61.
60. Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, ‘Neo-liberalism and Morality in the Making of Thatcherite Social Policy’, Historical Journal, 2012, 55, 2, 497–520.
61. Margaret Thatcher, ‘Shadows of Gunmen’, The Downing Street Years (HarperCollins, 1993), pp. 379–416.
62. Margaret Thatcher, ‘House Bound’, The Path to Power (HarperCollins, 1995), pp. 61–101.
63. Jim Tomlinson, ‘Mrs Thatcher’s Macroeconomic Adventurism, 1979–1981, and its Political Consequences’, British Politics, 2007, 2, 1, 3–19.
64. David Torrance, We in Scotland: Thatcherism in a Cold Climate (Birlinn, 2009) (extract).
65. George Urban, ‘Chequers Seminar on Germany’, Diplomacy and Disillusion at the Court of Margaret Thatcher: An Insider’s View (I. B. Tauris, 1996), pp. 118–50.
66. Richard Vinen, ‘Victory Foretold: The Miners’, Thatcher’s Britain (Simon and Schuster, 2009), pp. 154–78.
67. Stephen Wall, ‘The SEA and EMU’, A Stranger in Europe (Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 62–86.
68. P. F. Whiteley, P. Seyd, J. Richardson, and P. Bissell, ‘Thatcherism and the Conservative Party’, Political Studies, 1994, 42, 2, 185–203.
69. Mark Wickham-Jones, ‘Monetarism and its Critics: The University Economists’ Protest of 1981’, Political Quarterly, 1992, 63, 2, 171–85.
70. Woodrow Wyatt, Journals of Woodrow Wyatt (Macmillan, 1999), pp. 378–406.
71. Lord Young, ‘Election Campaign’, The Enterprise Years (Headline, 1990), pp. 204–31.
