Douglas Hurd – författare

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Elizabeth II: The Steadfast by Douglas Hurd, read by Jeremy Clyde. Elizabeth II is the longest-serving monarch who ever sat on the English or British throne. Yet her personality and influence remain elusive. This book, by a senior politician who has spent significant periods of time in her company, and is also a distinguished historian, portrays her more credibly than any other yet published.

Noisy popular liberal interventionism? Or a more conservative, diplomatic approach concentrating on co-operation between nations? This is the debate that lies at the heart of modern politics and Hurd traces its most interesting and influential exponents.He starts with Canning and Castelreagh in post Waterloo Britain; to a generation later, the victory of the interventionist Palmerston over Aberdeen; then to Salisbury (Imperialism) and Grey (European balance of power); and finally to Eden and Bevin who combined to lay the foundations of a post-war compromise.That delicate balance has served its purpose for over half a century, but as we enter a new era of terrorism and racial conflict, the old questions and divisions are re-surfacing . . .

Benjamin Disraeli was the most gifted parliamentarian of the nineteenth century and a superb orator, writer and wit - but how much do we really know about the man behind the words?''As Douglas Hurd and Edward Young point out in their splendidly written, finely judged and thoroughly persuasive book, a vast chasm yawned between the real Disraeli and his posthumous reinvention'' Dominic Sandbrook, SUNDAY TIMES''Not only, they tell us in this vigorously debunking romp through his political life, did he never use the phrases "One Nation" or "Tory Democracy", he was actively hostile to the concepts that they are now understood to represent'' Sam Leith, THE SPECTATOR''The book is more a study in character . . . than a staid political narrative. As a result, Disraeli: Or the Two Lives is full of unexpected jolts and paradoxes . . . It proves an unflagging pleasure to read'' Richard Davenport-Hines, GUARDIAN''So intoxicating that you will find yourself snorting it up in one go, as I did, with great pleasure'' Boris Johnson, MAIL ON SUNDAY

An ambitious Conservative Junior Minister, Edward Dunsford, seems to be doing all the right things in his bid to become Foreign Secretary. Until, that is, a moment''s sentimental weakness precipitates his career into chaos, his party into crisis and his own marriage onto the rocks.''So skilfully do Hurd and Lamport expose Whitehall''s nerve-ends that their dissection reveals more of the system''s internal workings than all the outpourings of the political researchers thick on the Westminster beat'' - Sunday Times