Margot Asquith’s Great War Diary, 1914-1916: The View from Downing Street. Edited by Michael Brock and Eleanor Brock. Oxford University Press; 417 pages; $49.95 and £30. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.ukDID a British prime minister ever have a more indiscreet wife? Or one more politically important? Margot Asquith gossiped and rowed with Westminster’s great and powerful. They liked receiving her invitations to Downing Street, where Tories broke bread with Liberals. Her bookish husband Herbert Asquith profited politically from these soirées.A recent television drama portrays Margot Asquith as a flibbertigibbet, who was only interested in trivia. Her wartime diaries, published for the first time, reveal an astute woman who relishes political argument. The diaries start with the lead-up to war and end with the fall of the last Liberal government and David Lloyd George’s extraordinary coup against the prime minister...
from The Economist: Books and arts http://ift.tt/1z80i8G
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