Table of Contents

Preface; Editor's Note; Introduction: Austen Chamberlain, 1863–1937: the man and his diary letters; 1. 'Time's strange revenges': coalition and the India Office, November 1916–July 1917; 2. 'One ought to be useful where one can': committees and commissions, August 1917-April 1918; 3. 'I feel bound to serve': the war cabinet, April 1918-January 1919; 4. 'The times make everything extremely difficult': the Treasury, January 1919–April 1921; 5. 'How strange is fate': the leadership, March–December 1921; 6. 'Fighting one's one friends is hateful work': coalition troubles, January –October 1922; 7. 'D … politics: cultivons notre jardin': into the wilderness, November 1922–December 1923; 8. Return of the 'exer ex-ministers': the opposition front bench, December 1923–November 1924; 9. 'The true author of European peace': the foreign office, the League and Locarno, December 1924–December 1926; 10. 'What a troubled world it still is': the foreign office after Locarno, January 1927–June 1929; 11. 'B. M. G … 'Baldwin (this time) must go!': the frustrations of opposition, June 1929–July 1931; 12. 'I am going through mental hell': political crisis and the Admiralty, August–December 1931; 13. 'These are not really my proper jobs': searching for a role January 1932–April 1933; 14. 'I continue very loquacious!': leading from the backbenches, April 1933–June 1935; 15. 'Sly, sir, devilish sly!': the torments of Baldwin, July 1935–March 1937.

Promotional Information

This collection of the diary letters of Austen Chamberlain provides a detailed record of Conservative and national politics in the inter-war period.

Reviews

'… an excellent example of the rising tide of published primary sources for twentieth-century British political history which is facilitating the shift from polemic and anecdote to a professional, archival historiography … as a primary source, it is certain to survive and to be treasured as an alternative to reading Chamberlain's execrable handwriting.' Contemporary European History