Finest and Darkest Hours

When asked about the greatest difficulty of being Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan famously replied 'events, dear boy, events'. Kevin Jefferys authoritative and entertaining book recreates and then assesses the key moments in British politics since the Second World War, how those moments reverberated through the years that followed and what Britain might have been like had they not occurred. Finest and Darkest Hours ranges from Winston Churchill's accession to the premiership in 1940 through to the emergence of New Labour in 1944 - via the Suez Canal fiasco, the Profumo affair, the three-day week, the winter of discontent, the Falklands war and Black Wednesday - to identify precisely how significant these famous episodes really were. It combines vivid portraits of the dramatis personae with sharp, often controversial, analysis of the unfolding crisis. Finest and Darkest Hours is a gripping, original and immensely enjoyable account of British post-war history.