The Conservative Party from Peel to Major

Robert Blake

There was no more appropriate person to write this book. Robert Blake was the doyen of Tory historians being most famous for his unsurpassed biography of Disraeli (to be reissued in Faber Finds). His history of the Conservative Party was first published in 1970. It then went as far as Churchill. A subsequent edition took it up to Thatcher and the final edition, the one being reissued by Faber Finds, to Major. For the span it covers, it remains the definitive one-volume history.

'His consummate insight into the whole of the political scene, and his power to communicate the enjoyment of it, makes this exciting reading for anyone remotely interested in British political and social history, or even in the English character.' Sunday Times

'This book is full of insights and enriched throughout by sparkling commentary' Evening Standard

'An up-to-date history of the Party was wanted. Mr Blake supplies it with lucidity, scholarship and serene worldliness' Guardian

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Plates
• List of Cartoons
• Foreword to the 1970 edition
• Note on the 1997 edition
• INTRODUCTION : The ancestry of the party
• CHAPTER I : Peel’s problem
• CHAPTER II : Peel’s achievement 1832–46
• CHAPTER III : The years of frustration 1846–65
• CHAPTER IV : Disraelian revival 1866–81
• CHAPTER V : Tory democracy and the rule of Lord Salisbury 1881–1902
• CHAPTER VI : Defeat and recovery 1902–22
• CHAPTER VII : The age of Baldwin 1922–40
• CHAPTER VIII : The ascendancy of Churchill 1940–55
• CHAPTER IX : The Macmillan years 1955–65
• CHAPTER X : Heath and Thatcher 1965–79
• CHAPTER XI : The Thatcher government 1979–83
• CHAPTER XII : The Thatcher government 1983–87
• CHAPTER XIII : Thatcher and Major 1987–97
• EPILOGUE
• POSTSCRIPT
• Governments 1830–1997
• Bibliographical note
• General index
• Plates
• About the Author
• Copyright