A narrow but fascinating account of a major political career from the days of prewar appeasement to the aftermath of Suez. A British don acknowledges the many vacillations and weaknesses of the man who at the beginning of his career at the Foreign Office was thought of as "the Noel Coward of international politics." Some new material, documenting the great tensions between Eden and Churchill as well as between Eden and his American partners, especially but not only over the ill-fated Suez campaign. Eden was neither so resolutely anti-appeasement in the mid-1930s nor so clearheaded about the Soviets as has been assumed. Some interesting sidelights, including the view of responsible appeasers that checking Hitler could lead to the triumph of Bolshevism in Germany and perhaps even in England.
