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

A masterly biography that reveals Eden in all his complexity.

Anthony Eden, who served as both Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, was one of the central political figures of the last century. This groundbreaking 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 1897, Eden 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 age 38, and the first British statesmen to meet Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. His dramatic resignation from Neville Chamberlain’s cabinet in 1938, outlined here in detail, made an international impact. After the outbreak of hostilities, he was brought back into government and served as Churchill’s principle lieutenant through the war.

This biography provides an absorbing study of Eden’s battles with Churchill over the modernization 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.”

D.R. Thorpe is a senior member of Brasenose College, Oxford. He was invited to undertake this biography by the Countess of Avon, Eden’s widow, who has made important new material available to him.