Macmillan 1894-1956, Vol. 1 and Vol 2 1957-1986 of the Official Biography By Alistair Horne

Macmillan: The Official Biography (Two-Volume Set)
The Definitive, Magisterial, and Uncompromising Authorized Record of a Transformative British Prime Minister

Macmillan: The Official Biography is universally celebrated as a magisterial, landmark masterpiece of modern political biography. Commissioned directly as the official, authorized chronicler, acclaimed historian Alistair Horne spent years reviewing unredacted state papers, private letters, and intimate personal journals to deliver a startlingly candid portrait of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. Moving far beyond standard, dry political summaries, this matched two-volume set exposes the complex psychological duality of a leader globally famous for his unflappable "Supermac" persona, but who was actually highly strung from childhood.

Volume 1 (1894–1956) charts Macmillan's solitary youth, molded by his forbidding American mother and publisher father, through his severe 1931 nervous breakdown. Horne reveals how this emotional romantic painstakingly remade himself into a stern pragmatist. The text details his role as Winston Churchill's trusted right-hand man during World War II, handling high-stakes diplomatic coordination with General Eisenhower and Charles de Gaulle from Casablanca to Finland. Horne uses this volume to vigorously rebut historical allegations that Macmillan conspired to repatriate thousands of Cossacks and White Russians to their doom after the war. The narrative reaches an explosive climax during the 1956 Suez Canal Crisis, detailing how Macmillan secretly advanced a plan to involve Israel in a joint attack on Egypt, alongside the devastating revelation that his wife Dorothy’s lifelong romantic affair nearly destroyed their private marriage.

Volume 2 (1957–1986) provides the magisterial conclusion to his career, spanning his historic premiership from 1957 to 1963 through to his eventual passing in 1986. Horne makes liberal use of Macmillan’s highly confidential personal letters and diaries, shedding brilliant new light on the Cold War era. The text provides extraordinarily blunt, unvarnished contemporary evaluations of key global figures—including Nikita Khrushchev, Charles de Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer, and John F. Kennedy. Documenting the wind of change blowing through Africa, domestic political crises, and his later years in the House of Lords as the Earl of Stockton, this matched first-edition set stands as an essential foundation piece for serious collectors of British political history and global twentieth-century diplomacy.

Sir Alistair Horne (1925–2017) was one of Great Britain's most distinguished historians, biographers, and journalists. Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, Horne authored over twenty highly acclaimed volumes on French and international history, including his legendary masterpiece on the Algerian War of Independence, A Savage War of Peace. Renowned for his fluid literary prose style, deep psychological entry points, and absolute commitment to primary source documentation, his historical expertise earned him the Hawthornden Prize, the Wolfson History Prize, and a knighthood for services to history and Anglo-French relations.