Product Description

Lloyd George became Prime Minister at a crucial point in the history of this country. Britain had reached the apogee of its military power but was facing a new and most deadly threat to its survival at sea. At home the Liberal party to which Lloyd George belonged was bitterly divided. Unrest in Ireland, with all its dangerous implications, was a growing menace. Grigg's account reveals the extent of Lloyd George's innovations in government and their impact on traditional Britain. Here we see one of the most resourceful leaders of modern times in brilliant action, transforming his country in pursuit of victory.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #221553 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 669 pages

Review
Volume four of John Grigg's mammoth biography picks up where the previous volume, From Peace to War, left off, midway through the first great global conflict of the 20th century. Lloyd George has just assumed the mantle of government, and faces a challenge every bit as daunting as that which will confront Churchill in 1940. Britain's three great allies - France, Russia and Italy - are all tottering on the brink of disaster and will soon be in need of support themselves. Britain's merchant shipping, on which the entire war effort depends (and without which the country will almost certainly starve) is being sent to the bottom of the ocean by Germany's U-boats. The fearful sacrifice of the nation's manhood on the western front is achieving nothing, while the military chiefs responsible regard themselves as, at very least, the equals, and certainly not the servants, of the civil government. Lloyd George's own Liberal Party is bitterly divided. In Parliament he relies on Conservative votes. The rising cost of living is creating unrest among the working class, and the Irish issue, post-Easter rising, still simmers away in disconcerting fashion. To square these circles required a man of extraordinary political skill and ruthlessness, administrative genius, superhuman energy and leadership qualities of the highest order. Lloyd George had all these in abundance, and John Grigg's masterly portrait reveals in all his complexity, subtlety and humanity the man A J P Taylor calls 'the greatest British statesman of the twentieth century'. Sadly Grigg died before he could complete this epic undertaking. Perhaps it was just as well. If there was more to come, it might well have seemed like an anti-climax. These two years were undoubtedly Lloyd George's finest hour - and Grigg's too, in the telling of it. An afterword, tying up the loose ends of the war years, is provided by Margaret MacMillan, author of the much-admired Peacemakers. (Kirkus UK)

About the Author
The first three volumes of John Grigg's life of Lloyd George (The Young Lloyd George, The People's Champion and From Peace to War - all available in Penguin paperback) have established him as one of the greatest political biographers of the century. This is his last book, which he had almost completed before his death on 31st December 2001. Margaret MacMillan, prize-winning author of Peacemakers, has written the Afterword which completes the book.

Customer Reviews

lloyd george war leader by John Grigg
This book is the 4th of a multi-volume definitive biography of Britain's great leader of ww1.The first 3 volumes were superb. However the author john Grigg died shortly before completing this volume. Margaret Macmillan (who wrote a brilliant work on the Treaty of Versailles) has written a good Afterward. There is no bibliography but hopefully this is planned for the final volume(s). There was a Note on Sources
In volumes 1 and 2.

On war, strategy and the relations between Foch and the British generals and Lloyd George’s difficulties with them, Grigg is in his element. On domestic politics similarly Grigg is masterful as in his account of Electoral Reform and Industrial unrest—but every now and then Grigg’s private Liberal Democatic sympathies slip out, berating the PM for not introducing proportional representation in the middle of the Great War. The calm shaded Oxford empiricism disappears into passion, which is after all, the stuff of politics. If you doubt your “objectivity” simply state the pros and cons clearly and let the reader make up his own mind.
Chapter 19 on the Balfour Declaration reveals what value free empiricism can lead to and for that matter so called objectivity. The analysis is dreadful, imbalanced and plain wrong. From the footnotes there is no mention of him having studied Leonard Stein’s “The Balfour Declaration” the most scholarly detailed and full work on the issue. Grigg fails as a result to understand Lloyd Georges Zionism, which was based on the principle of enlightened self-interest in foreign policy. LG hoped for a Jewish Dominion in the British Commonwealth and was strong enough (as were Churchill and Balfour) to push this through and make it stick against Moslem and anti Zionist Jewish pressure. Grigg prefers the Foreign Office line as did Chamberlain, Attlee and Bevin despite the fact that this policy ultimately failed. On page 350n.20 Grigg complains that public Anti-Jewish remarks are no longer considered decent!

In my dreams these flaws will be expunged in the second edition and this guargantuan work will be properly completed with at least one final volume by Margaret Macmillan or another able historian.If so the works will then as the quarry and classic on LG like Churchill and Gilbert on Churchill and Lady Gwendolen Cecil on Salisbury.