British Prime Ministers and Other Essays

<p>A. J. P. Taylor could never be dull, least of all in the essay. The medium was perfect for his qualities. In expression he displayed elegant brevity: in argument paradox: in knowledge lightly-worn mastery. The result was an aphoristic concinnity only perhaps bettered among historians by Macaulay. <br><br>Faber are reissuing three volumes of essays expertly assembled and introduced by Chris Wrigley.<br>This third volume is the most wide-ranging, including essays on British Prime Ministers from Sir Robert Walpole to Anthony Eden; How Wars Begin; How Wars End; The Congress of Vienna and, one of his more unlikely heroes, Lord Beaverbrook.<br><br>''He (Taylor) presented history in a vibrant, living, communicable form with many crucial messages for the present . . . this collection reminds is of his vast contribution.'' Andrew Roberts, <i>Daily Telegraph</i></p>