How did Margaret Thatcher both change and divide Britain? How did her model of combative female leadership help shape the way we live now? How did the woman who won the Cold War and three general elections in succession find herself pushed out by her own MPs?

Charles Moore’s full account, based on unique access to Margaret Thatcher herself, her papers, and her closest associates, tells the story of her last period in office, her combative retirement, and the controversy that surrounded her even in death.

It includes the fall of the Berlin Wall, which she had fought for, and the rise of the modern EU that she feared. It lays bare her growing quarrels with colleagues and reveals the truth about her political assassination.

Moore’s three-part biography of one of Britain’s most important peacetime prime ministers paints an intimate political and personal portrait of the victories and defeats, and the iron will but surprising vulnerability of the woman who dominated in an age of male power.

Reader: Haydn Gwynne
Abridger: Polly Coles
Producer: Clive Brill

A Brill production for BBC Radio 4 Show less