A wide-ranging, readable and controversial assessment of Thatcher's foreign policy throughout her years in office, 1979-90. Successive chapters cover her partnership with Lord Carrington, the Falklands War, her American policy, her fights with the EC over money and institutional development, her relationship with Gorbachev, and the failure of her German policy. In arguing that Thatcher's attempt to reconcile economic liberalism with political nationalism in a more assertive foreign policy prefigured the emerging statecraft of post-Cold War great power politics, Paul Sharp demonstrates why studying her successes and failures offers an invaluable guide for policy-makers around the world today.

In this work, the author surveys British foreign policy from 1984 to 1992, the last seven years of Margaret Thatcher's government and the first years of John Major's. The book offers a picture of the Downing Street setting, its personalities, the troubled relationship between No 10 and the Foreign Office, the way in which decisions were made, and the interplay between foreign policy and the secret world of intelligence. Topics covered include Margaret Thatcher's relations with Reagan and Gorbachev; the collapse of the Soviet empire; the reunification of Germany; Britain's quarrels with Europe; the Gulf War; and the beginnings of the Yugoslav tragedy.

The compelling essays brought together in this collection provide new assessments of the course of British foreign policy from the Glorious Revolution to the Treaty of Maastricht in 1991, its underlying principles as well as Britain's standing in international politics. The essays examine these issues through the prism of the personalities of those Foreign Secretaries and Prime Ministers who had a major impact on the course and conduct of British foreign policy, from the elder Pitt in the eighteenth century to Margaret Thatcher at the end of the twentieth. This collection of essays offers a powerful challenge to many traditional assumptions about Britain's decline as a great power, her imperial and continental commitments, and the contentious issue of 'Europe'.

In a remarkably candid new book, former high-ranking diplomat Robin Renwick provides a fascinating insight into Margaret Thatcher's performances on the world stage. He examines her successes, including the defeat of aggression in the Falklands, her contribution to the ending of the Cold War and her role in the Anglo-Irish agreement; her special relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev and what the Americans felt to be the excessive influence she exerted over Ronald Reagan, and attitudes towards F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela; and what she herself acknowledged as her spectacular failure in resisting German reunification. He describes at first hand her often turbulent relationships with other European leaders and her arguments with Cabinet colleagues about European monetary union (in which regard, he contends, her arguments have stood the test of time and are highly relevant to the crisis in the eurozone today). Finally, he tells of her bravura performance in the run-up to the Gulf War, her calls for intervention in Bosnia and the difficulties she created for her successor. While her faults were on the same scale as her virtues, Margaret Thatcher succeeded in her mission to restore Britain's standing and influence, in the process becoming a cult figure in many other parts of the world. Including material from the recently released War Cabinet files on the Falklands conflict, this book is an important exploration of an outstanding world leader.