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- Product code: 251562
- ISBN: 0007178271,
ISBN13: 9780007178278,
512 pages, paperback
Published by Harper Collins, 2008
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Description of Michael Foot: A Life |
Michael Foot has had a long and fascinating life. He took part in twenty general elections between 1929 and 2005. He spans the worlds of Stafford Cripps and Tony Blair. At the age of 27, he became famous as joint author of Guilty Men, a legendary condemnation of pre-war Chamberlainite appeasement. Returned to parliament after the war, he became a dominant figure in the Labour left, a matchless pamphleteer, a scintillating parliamentary and mass orator, editor of Tribune, leading Bevanite and founder member of CND.
As a minister Foot also became a key player in Old Labour's last phase in the seventies, the architect of vital trade union legislation and leader of the House, and then for nearly three tormented years, leader of his party. Equally important, he was a cultured, literate man and a prolific author, whose literary and historical learning was vital to his political outlook, making him a civilising, inspirational force in British life and the international socialist movement. He symbolises a world we have lost.
Kenneth Morgan's authorised and finely written biography traces Foot's career from Cromwellian West Country origins to rebellious old age. It is based on a unique range of sources, many of them new, including extensive interviews with Michael Foot and with dozens of his colleagues in government, the Civil Service, the party and the press, and rich material in private papers and public records. It illuminates his complex, often turbulent, relationships with contemporaries such as Cripps and Lord Beaverbrook; Barbara Castle and Aneurin Bevan; Orwell and Koestler; Jim Callaghan, Tony Benn and Indira Gandhi. It also analyses in depth his wide-ranging literary interests, especially the importance for him of Dean Swift, Montaigne, Hazlitt, Byron and H.G.Wells; his contribution to the socialist idea; his relationship with his father, Isaac, and his family; and the emotional partnership with his beloved wife, Jill Craigie.
Michael Foot emerges here in all his complex, passionate humanity - radical critic, public dissenter, inveterate peacemonger, romantic (rather than ideological) socialist but also a man of profound culture, literary consciousness and deep-rooted patriotism, a unique public figure over seven decades, and one of the outstanding Englishmen of recent times.
'…The great achievement of Morgan’s fine biography is that it reminds us what a wonderfully humane, cultivated man Foot was – and indeed still is…the joy of Morgan’s early chapters is that they show just how deeply Foot drank from the wellsprings of England's native radical traditions…he deserves to be remembered…as one of the most erudite, decent, public-spirited men of his time.' Daily Telegraph
'A fair record of Foot's trajectory from windbag rebel to conscientious cabinet minister.' Sunday Times
'Morgan’s judgements of Foot are elegantly balanced…Foot was, and still is, a great man who deservedly inspires affection as well as admiration.' Observer
'A thoroughly professional piece of history, beautifully written and with facts and arguments skillfully assembled…Morgan has done his best to find out what made Foot tick.' Financial Times
‘When asked what luxury he would take with him to accompany his discs on a desert island one of his senior civil servants replied “Michael Foot”. It is the singular merit of this book that the author makes one see why.’ Spectator
‘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 – for books, for people and for causes.’ Scotsman
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About Kenneth O. Morgan |
Kenneth Morgan is the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales, Honorary fellow of Queen's and Oriel Colleges, Fellow of the British Academy and, since 2000, a Labour peer. He is the author of 25 books, including biographies of Keir Hardie, Lloyd George, Lord Addison and Lord Callaghan.
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