Charles Moore was born in 1956 and educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read History. He joined the staff of the Daily Telegraph in 1979, and as a political columnist in the 1980s covered several years of Mrs Thatcher's first and second governments. He was Editor of the Spectator 1984-90; Editor of the Sunday Telegraph 1992-95; and Editor of the Daily Telegraph 1995-2003, for which he is still a regular columnist. He is married, with a grown-up son and daughter, and lives in Sussex. The first volume of his biography of Margaret Thatcher, published in 2013, won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, the HW Fisher Best First Biography Prize and Political Book of the Year at the Paddy Power Political Book Awards.
The second volume is if anything even better than the first, a
model of close research, fluent prose and impeccable judgement. Yet
the real measure of his achievement is that amid all the summits
and meetings, the policy papers and parliamentary duels, he never
loses sight of the woman at the centre of it all. Almost every page
of Moore's book throws up an unexpected insight or nugget. Moore
writes as an unashamed Thatcher fan, but it is to his immense
credit that the book never feels unduly partisan. He is frank about
her failings. What keeps you turning the pages is not just Moore's
lovely, smooth style, but his quiet dry humour. It is a tribute to
Moore's skill as a writer that he makes you look at her as a human
being. This is, I think, one of the great biographical achievements
of our times. -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times *
Charles Moore has overcome the challenge of following his
outstanding and compelling first volume on Mrs Thatcher's rise by
making his second, the account of her period of greatest success,
as exciting as a novel. ... As in the first volume, Moore shows a
Thatcher far different from the myths of both Left and Right which
are now part of British culture. ... This is a magnificent piece of
work, and when he has completed it with the third volume, Moore
will have done the justice she deserves to a great Prime Minister.
-- William Waldegrave * Evening Standard *
Moore is supremely skilled at focusing on this issue or that and
then swiftly pulling his camera back to show the sheer hectic
muddle and rush of her life as Prime Minister. ... The extent of
his research is unmatched by any other biographer. It includes
interviews with many hundreds of people, both allies and enemies
... Unlike stuffier writers, he recognises the value in speaking to
those whose lowlier positions let them spy on events from an
oblique angle. Her detective recalls the way President Mitterrand
kept staring at her legs on a car journey and an interpreter
remembers her first set-to with not-yet-President Gorbachev. --
Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *
Moore's project is a study of detailed depth, and fine and
transparent judgements, which rises to the largeness of a figure
and a time that were of world significance. It is written with
evident admiration but never slops over into sycophancy. Very few
journalists, with a lifetime of against-deadline scribbling behind
them, could muster the sustained intellectual power this required.
-- John Lloyd * Financial Times *
An awesomely thorough and authoritative portrait ... the definitive
explanation of the strange person who most shaped modern Britain.
-- Andy Beckett * Guardian *
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