Paradoxes of Power : Reflections on the Thatcher Interlude

Thumb through the index of any study of the Thatcher years and you will come across the name of Sir Alfred Sherman. In her memoirs Lady Thatcher herself pays tribute to his ?brilliance?, the ?force and clarity of his mind?, his ?breadth of reading and his skills as a ruthless polemicist?. She credits him with a central role in her achievements. Born in 1919 in London's East End, until 1948 Sherman was a Communist and fought in the Spanish Civil War. But he ended up a free- market crusader. Sherman examines the origins and development of ?Thatcherism?, but concludes that it was an ?interlude? and that the post-war consensus remains largely unscathed.