This biography of Malcolm Muggeridge traces the varied life of one of the most brilliant and controversial men of the twentieth century. The author, Ian Hunter, was given full access to all of Muggeridge's unpublished material, letters, and diaries. The result is an objective, well-researched, and honest account that is sometimes at variance with Muggeridge's own recollection of events. Ian Hunter captures the humor, the intellect, the rawness of perception, the abandoned honesty of a man engaged in knowing himself, his world, and his God. Malcolm Muggeridge was not merely a "vendor of words," as he invariably described himself, but was also a celebrated author, broadcaster, lecturer, debater, traveller, journalist and television personality, a one-time ardent admirer of the Soviet system, a World War II intelligence agent, and a former agnostic turned committed Christian. To many people, however, Malcolm Muggeridge was admired above all for his superb use of the English language. It is to the credit of Ian Hunter that after reading this biography one has a clearer understanding of an extraordinary man. Dr. Ian Hunter is professor emeritus at the University of Western Ontario. His articles and reviews have appeared in many Canadian and American poublications. He edited two collections of Muggeridge's writings: Things Past and The Very Best of Malcolm Muggeridge; he also wrote a biography of Muggeridge's friend, Hesketh Pearson (Nothing to Repent: The Life of Heskerth Pearson).

Excerpts drawn from books, essays, journalism, broadcasts, scripts, diaries and letters, 1926-1986.

Wolf, founder and editor of Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, draws on Muggeridge's (1903-1990) writings, correspondence, interviews, unpublished diaries, and his own friendship with Muggeridge to chronicle the long and turbulent life of the controversial writer and social critic. From his socialist upbringing to his years as foreign correspondent, editor, television personality, and convert to Roman Catholicism, the author delves behind the public persona to reveal the underlying spiritual and intellectual unity that runs through the many phases of his career. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Selected addresses and interviews.

A scholar gentleman in the old style; a northern non-conforming radical; an academic steeped in Oxford traditions; a late 20th-century media personality; one of the most outstanding historians of his age: A.J.P. Taylor was all of these. He wrote about traditional historical subjects in a traditional manner and took narrative history to new heights and was equally at home with a critical academic, as with a vast popular audience. This biographical study of A.J.P. Taylor includes details of Taylor's privileged and cosseted childhood, the effect of his close but combative and stimulating family, the dissenting and nonconformist tradition, and his time as teacher, broadcaster journalist and historian. It attempts to evaluate how far he fulfilled his aim and conviction as to the importance of history and its place at the heart of national consciousness.

Dominic Sandbrook looks behind the myths of the swinging sixties to unearth the contradictions of a society caught between optimism and decline. The sequel to 'Never Had It So Good', this book completes Sandbrook's groundbreaking history of Britain in the 1960s.