Michael Foot: A Life - Softcover

Morgan, Kenneth O.

4.23

61 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007178271 ISBN 13: 9780007178278

Publisher: Harpercollins Pub Ltd, 2008

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Michael Foot has been a controversial and charismatic figure in British public life for more than sixty years. He rose as a crusading leftwing journalist in the late 1930s; his book The Guilty Men, on pre-war appeasers of Nazi Germany, is one of the great radical tracts of British history. He has long been the voice of libertarian socialism in parliament, has served as a government minister, and was Labour party leader between 1980 and 1983. His political friendships with the most prominent politicians of his time were passionate and profound, but he also had a remarkable and quite different career as a man of letters, with Dean Swift, Tom Paine, Byron, and Wordsworth amongst his heroes. Fully authorized yet fairly balanced, this is account does full justice to both the public and the private side of Michael Foot, as well as to his different roles as journalist, politician, and literati.

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About the Author:

Kenneth O. Morgan is the author of more than 25 books, including the best-selling Oxford Illustrated History of Britain. He is a personal acquaintance of Michael Foot.

Review:

'I was engrossed. Kenneth Morgan's superb portrait quickly takes shape...This is much more than another Labour biography. It is a portrait in bright oils of a master parliamentary literary-politcal agitator, in a society congenitally hard to rouse.' Prospect 'A joy to read, erudite, wry, sensitive and enlightening, packed with juicy items...from nearly a century of tumultuous personal, party and national events.' History Today 'Magnificent biography...Morgan has given us a book that is everything an authorized biography should be. It's compendious meticulously researched with the collaboration of its subject, and contains every fact you are ever likely to want to know about him.' Guardian 'A substantial work of history, not shy to explore Foot's human frailties...Yet it is also affectionate, conveying the warmth of Foot's generosity of spirit and his passions.' Scotsman `Beautifully written, and with facts and arguments skillfully assembled...a supremely honest scholar.' Financial Times 'Morgan's judgements of Foot are elegantly balanced...accurate narrative and careful analysis.' Roy Hattersley, The Observer

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