Britain in the 20th century is in many senses uncharted territory for historians, territory by and large left to sociologists and political theorists. In a series of essays on British political leaders from Gladstone and Salisbury through Lloyd George, Churchill and Attlee to Thatcher, Peter Clarke looks at the questions of how individual leaders have shaped the history of the UK, interacting with the social and economic forces beloved of sociologists, tackling the questions of how important is political leadership, and how much is history determined by socio-economic trends and how much by the decisions of individuals.