The Macmillan Diaries

the long version

"From August 1950 until 1966 Harold Macmillian kept a regular journal of the thoughts and events of his life. Despite the succession of high offices he held in these years, as Minister of Housing and Local Government, Minister of Defence, Foreign Secretary, Chancellor of the Exechequer and finally as Prime Minister, Macmillian still found time to write one of the fullest and most entertaining political diaries of the twentieth century." "This first volume covers the Conservatives' return to office in 1951 and the personalities and politics of Churchill's and Eden's governments, culminating in Macmillan's accession to the premiership in 1957. It not only records Macmillan's political preoccupations, such as the process of European integration, Anglo-American relations, conflict in the Middle East and the problems of the Cold War, but also provides wry pen portraits of many of the leading European and American figures of the period. Macmillan was an acute observer of events and people not just in his own country or party, but on the wider international and political scene. He describes with ironic amusement the diplomatic confrontations with the Russians, casts a connoisseur's eye over great parliamentary occasions and comments acerbically on the infighting of the Labour Opposition. In the process the diary also reveals aspects of Macmillan's wider activities and inner concerns, his anxiety, his views on his role and what he hoped to achieve, casting light beyond the 'unflappable' exterior onto the character of one of the most enigmatic figures in modern British political history."--BOOK JACKET.