1. Purpose: to give students experience considering the life and times of a British prime minister.



2. Content: This is still another exercise in critical thinking. Your essay should reflect an understanding of what the author had to say, and as well should convey this to the reader (of your paper) who has not yet read the book. The content of these essays will vary, appropriately, from student to student, because these lives and their contexts were so very different. Do not try to rewrite the book by detailing a narrative. Rather, try to do the following: (1) briefly (a paragraph or so) discuss the author's understanding of his or her subject; (2) place your subject within the relevant historical context; (3) come to a conclusion about when, why and how much your subject made an impact on his or her era.



3. Procedures:
1. Skim Britannia-Prime Minister to determine which leader you want to read about.



2. Choose the biography from the list below, and then electronically sign up: first come, first served. The signup instructions will be detailed in class.

The Prime Minister paper is due at the point in the course when your subject appears.

Each of the following is in the library:

• J. H. Plumb, Sir Robert Walpole (1961)


• John William Wilkes, A Whig in Power: The Political Career of Henry Pelham (1964)


• J. H. Plumb, Chatham [William Pitt the elder] (1965)


• Allen Johnson, George Grenville (1997)
• Peter Whiteley, Lord North (1996)


• John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt (1983)
• Derek Jarrett, Pitt the Younger (1974)


• Norman Gask, Lord Liverpool (1984)
• Wendy Hinde, George Canning (1974)


• Elizabeth Longford, Wellington: Pillar of State (1972)


• E. A. Smith, Lord Grey (1990)


• David Cecil, Melbourne (1955)


• Philip Ziegler, Melbourne (1976)


• L.G. Mitchell, Melbourne (1997)


• Norman Gash, Lord Liverpool (1985)


• John Prest, Lord John Russell (1972)


• Paul Scherer, Lord John Russell (1999)


• Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970)


• Donald Southgate, Palmerston (1966)


• Robert Blake, Disraeli (1967)


• Paul Smith, Disraeli (1996)


• Philip Magnus, Gladstone (1954)


• Roy Jenkins, Gladstone (1997)


• David Steele, Lord Salisbury (1999)
  
• Robert Rhodes James, Rosebery (1964)


• Blanche Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour (1937)


• John Wilson, Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1974)


• Roy Jenkins, Asquith (1964)


• H.C.G. Matthew, William Gladstone (1997)
• Stephen Koss, Asquith (1985)


• R.J.Q. Adams, Bonar Law (1999)


• Robert Blake, Andrew Bonar Law (1956)


• David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald (1977)


• Philip Williamson, Stanley Baldwin (1999)


• Keith Middlemas, Baldwin (1969)


• Keith Feiling, Neville Chamberlain (1946)


• Iain Macleod, Neville Chamberlain (1962)


• Henry Pelling, Winston Churchill (1974)


• Martin Gilbert, Churchill (1991)


• Kenneth Harris, Attlee (1982)


• Robert Rhodes James, Anthony Eden (1987)


• David Dutton, Anthony Eden (1997)


• Margaret Laing, Edward Heath (1973)


• D.R. Thorpe, Alec Douglas-Home (1996)


• Kenneth O. Morgan, James Callaghan (1997)


• Hugo Young, Margaret Thatcher (1990)