Beaverbrook

A Life

Edición de la obra Beaverbrook

"I am the victim of the Furies. On the rock-bound coast of New Brunswick the waves break incessantly. Every now and then comes a particularly dangerous wave smashing viciously into the rock. It is called 'The Rage.' That's me." "When Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, wrote these words to Winston Churchill at the height of World War II he was sixty-two, the second most powerful man in the kingdom and (at least in his own eyes) a potential prime minister himself. As Fleet Street's most dynamic and inventive press baron, as cabinet minister, as compulsive behind-the-scenes manipulator, he had already been playing a central role in British public life for three decades, and would continue to do so until his death in 1964. Describing himself as a force of nature was pure Beaverbrook; but no one who knew him would be likely to deny the accuracy of the description." "In this ground-breaking biography, the first to deal objectively with its subject, Anne Chisholm and Michael Davie succeed brilliantly in bringing the man to life. Here is young Max, a son of the manse, rebelliously growing up in a remote corner of the Canadian Maritimes, going on to make a fortune in business by methods clearly described for the first time. We see him in London, scarcely thirty, deploying his money and his demonic energy not only to invade the upper reaches of British society but also to get a seat in Parliament and achieve a peerage, all in only six years ... promoting the coup that overthrew Asquith as Prime Minister in the middle of World War I ... taking over the Daily Express and building the biggest circulation and most controversial newspaper empire of the time. . . incessantly tinkering with politics, from tariff reform to appeasement ... doing as much as anyone, as Minister of Aircraft Production, to win the Battle of Britain in the early years of World War II, then taking up Stalin's cause. He's shown postwar, as well, undermining Britain's early attempts to enter the Common Market. Then there are the private life and the friendships - if indeed he can ever be said to have had any real friends - ranging from Arnold Bennett and Rudyard Kipling to Lady Diana Cooper and Rebecca West." "Beaverbrook stirred strong feelings. Lloyd George distrusted him; Baldwin hated him; Churchill needed him; Attlee thought him 'evil.' Some regarded him as a corrupting influence on public life; Michael Foot and A.J.P. Taylor actually claimed to love him. Though much has been written about him, much has been left out, possibly because every one of the writers was or had once been on Beaverbrook's extensive payroll. His affairs with women, his handouts, his vendettas, his financial dealings, his troubled relations with his children - all these have remained shadowy. Now, with the aid of assiduous research in the documentary sources (which are vast - the House of Lords archives alone contain nine hundred boxes of Beaverbrook papers) and dozens of interviews with surviving associates, family members and others, Anne Chisholm and Michael Davie bring us close to the real Beaverbrook. In some ways a hero, in some ways a monster, he emerges from this book as never less than fascinating, a man who - whatever one may think of him - cannot be ignored."--Jacket.