Margaret Thatcher

The British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1925 - 2013) was known far beyond the borders of her country as the"Iron Lady". The first woman to hold the highest government office in a European state attracted international attention when she was elected; subsequently, the confrontational style of her politics secured her admiration and loathing far beyond the end of her term of office. Thatcher presented herself as a fighter against her country's economic and moral decline, which she attributed to the effects of an expansive welfare state and the political influence of the trade unions. On the other hand, they presented a national regeneration program that was intended to stimulate economic growth forces and personal initiative through privatization and monetarist money supply control. On the international political stage, she earned a reputation as a staunch"cold warrior"whose primary goal was to roll back Soviet communism. This biographical essay describes Thatcher's view of politics as a dramatization of political differences into irreconcilable opposites of good and evil.

softcover