Lloyd George

Assesses the main features of Lloyd George's career from his early days when he established a reputation as a fiery radical, his work as a social reformer, his stance vis-a-vis the Boer War, his career during World War I and his work in the peace-making process, and his later years out of office. Professor Wrigley, an authority on Lloyd George's relationship with the Labour Movement, has produced a brief life of Lloyd George which draws on both the vast literature on him and on the main archival collection. Professor Wrigley assesses the main features of Lloyd George's career beginning with his early days when he established a major reputation as a fiery Radical concerned with Welsh political and social issues in North Wales in the 1880s and 1890s. He then discusses the social reform strand in Lloyd George's career up to the First World War. A third theme is Lloyd George's attitude to Britain's foreign policy, including the waging of war in South Africa (1899-1902) and on the continent of Europe and elsewhere during the First World War (1914-1918). He considers Lloyd George's reputation as the maker of peace and the main architect of reconstruction after the First World War. The final theme is Lloyd George's search for new causes and for electoral support after his fall from the premiership in 1922. Professor Wrigley surveys the biographical writing on Lloyd George and concludes this book with an attempt to assess this most elusive and mercurial of major British figures of this century. Professor Wrigley assesses the main features of Lloyd George's career from his early days as a fiery Welsh radical through the pre-First World War Liberal social reforms to his premiership (1916-1922) and after. He concludes with an assessment of the place of Lloyd George in British political history and a survey of the biographical material available.