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2.79 AVERAGE
2.79 AVERAGE
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
Lady Thatcher's biography of becoming the first female British PM.
So far as I'm aware, Margaret Thatcher (the English Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990) wrote her biography in 2 parts. One focused on the 11 years she spent in power. This book focuses (mainly) on her rise to power.
This book feels dated, but perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by that. Here she's looking at her like from the 1930s to the 1970s (when she's about to win the election). There isn't too much discussion of the 1930s though, because she was very young for a lot of that period. She attended university in the early 1940s.
In a way this book is interesting. I remember Thatcher as Prime Minister, so it was interesting to learn about her early life. It is her youth that shaped her, and given that she shaped the country in many ways, I think that it was useful to understand her background.
This having been said, I would say that there are a couple of major flaws with the book. First, when describing her youth, she, like many autobiographers I think, has a tendency to use "rose tinted spectacles." So far as I can tell, all the men are intelligent, women strong and children "above average" in Grantham, and I have real difficulty believing that.
Secondly a good chunk of the end of the book looks at her vision for the future. Given that that vision was written in 1995, it does feel a little dated now. Maybe it's accurate, maybe it isn't, but when she talks about GATT and the beneficial impact of globalisation, you have to look back at the last 4 or 5 years and think really?
This book feels dated, but perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by that. Here she's looking at her like from the 1930s to the 1970s (when she's about to win the election). There isn't too much discussion of the 1930s though, because she was very young for a lot of that period. She attended university in the early 1940s.
In a way this book is interesting. I remember Thatcher as Prime Minister, so it was interesting to learn about her early life. It is her youth that shaped her, and given that she shaped the country in many ways, I think that it was useful to understand her background.
This having been said, I would say that there are a couple of major flaws with the book. First, when describing her youth, she, like many autobiographers I think, has a tendency to use "rose tinted spectacles." So far as I can tell, all the men are intelligent, women strong and children "above average" in Grantham, and I have real difficulty believing that.
Secondly a good chunk of the end of the book looks at her vision for the future. Given that that vision was written in 1995, it does feel a little dated now. Maybe it's accurate, maybe it isn't, but when she talks about GATT and the beneficial impact of globalisation, you have to look back at the last 4 or 5 years and think really?
informative
reflective
slow-paced
I admire her for the very characteristic that her detractors loathed her: unafraid and unshrinking, quite like the way Lee Kuan Yew, Ronald Reagan and Indira Gandhi were: they were all of the same sorts, with the same tastes and almost similar interests.
I was, therefore, unsurprised when she, in her earlier book, "Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World", dedicated a number of lengthy paragraphs to Lee Kuan Yew, about whom she waxed lyrical. When I read "The path to Power", I was anticipating to get a glimpse of what made her so formidable, but I was a trifle disappointed when the text did not afford me that privilege. It looked like she wrote the first and the last parts of the books first, and the middle portion had been inserted much later to make the text seem intellectual and objective.
The author assumed that her reader would know the political and social history of Britain in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Thus, people like me who do not know anything about the landmark events and episodes that shaped and made the UK during Thatcher's reign would, naturally, be out of depth when she went into minute details about them.
Still and all, the book was a good read for a number of reasons: she was a smart but humble lady who had politics in her blood right from her adolescence, largely informed by her grocer father. A devout Christian, astute politician, whose sense of purpose to make a difference paved her way to the highest rungs of power in the United Kingdom. If only she had said more about her philosophy, beliefs, private thoughts, and family, "The path to Power" would have been a better read.
I was, therefore, unsurprised when she, in her earlier book, "Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World", dedicated a number of lengthy paragraphs to Lee Kuan Yew, about whom she waxed lyrical. When I read "The path to Power", I was anticipating to get a glimpse of what made her so formidable, but I was a trifle disappointed when the text did not afford me that privilege. It looked like she wrote the first and the last parts of the books first, and the middle portion had been inserted much later to make the text seem intellectual and objective.
The author assumed that her reader would know the political and social history of Britain in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Thus, people like me who do not know anything about the landmark events and episodes that shaped and made the UK during Thatcher's reign would, naturally, be out of depth when she went into minute details about them.
Still and all, the book was a good read for a number of reasons: she was a smart but humble lady who had politics in her blood right from her adolescence, largely informed by her grocer father. A devout Christian, astute politician, whose sense of purpose to make a difference paved her way to the highest rungs of power in the United Kingdom. If only she had said more about her philosophy, beliefs, private thoughts, and family, "The path to Power" would have been a better read.