Book description
Modelled on Lytton Strachey's classic portrayal of eminent
Victorians, Piers Brendon's cameo biographies shed dazzling new light
on the age of Queen Elizabeth II. All four of his characters have
loomed large in the annals of their time. All have aroused controversy
in the uttermost corners of the earth, stirring passions as much by
personality as by performance. And all have been ambivalent towards
the great contemporary process of change, promoting revolt yet
championing continuity, flirting with radicalism yet embracing conservatism.
Brendon's cast list is as follows:
·Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire media mogul whose empire,
built on an ethical void, has polluted the channels of communication
from London to Sydney, from New York to New Guinea;
·Prince Charles, the royal dilettante whose erratic exploits
shook the throne and put his own succession to it at risk;
·Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister, who
dedicated herself with messianic zeal to breaking the mould of
post-war British politics; and
·Mick Jagger, lead singer of the Rolling Stones, who
embodied the sixties counter-culture of sex and drugs and rock 'n'
roll yet aspired to be a gentleman and accepted a knighthood at the
behest of Tony Blair.
A sequel to Brendon's best-selling Eminent Edwardians, which
has been in print ever since it was published nearly thirty years ago,
Eminent Elizabethans is written in the same witty, ironic and
irreverent style. Like its predecessor, it sets its quartet in
context, revealing how each one played out a major theme in the new
Elizabethan medley. But the dramatis personae are not just
treated as symptoms of their history, rather as creatures of flesh and
blood. They are vividly and vitally depicted through pungent anecdote,
piquant quotation and mordant commentary. In short, these brilliant
miniatures are as entertaining as they are illuminating.
Piers Brendon is the author of more than a dozen books, including
biographies of Churchill and Eisenhower, the best-selling
Eminent Edwardians
and
The Dark Valley
, and, most recently, the highly acclaimed
The Decline and Fall of
the British Empire
. He also writes for television and contributes frequently to the
national press. Formerly Keeper of the Churchill Archives Centre, he is
a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Literature.
