Peter Jenkins, now Associate Editor and political columnist of the Independent, achieved a reputation, during his years as a political columnist on the Guardian, as the most authoritative, thoughtful and best-informed commentator on the contemporary political scene. Now he has brought his wide experience of current political ideas and personalities to bear in an ambitious and important new book - a study of the phenomenon of the rise of Thatcherism, in his view more of a style than an ideology, but certainly the most significant factor in the transformation of modern British politics. With a remarkable blending of historical knowledge and intellectual excitement, Jenkins examines the emergence and continuing success of Margaret Thatcher against the gloomy background of what he calls 'the politics of decline'. He shows how the failure of the post-war 'consensus', based on the concept fWelfare State, prepared the ground for Mrs Thatcher's radical solution to the nation's growing economic and social problems, Jenkins is the first in his field to distill one lucid narrative from the many complicated stories of the pursuit of growth, the use and misuse of incomes policy, the miners' strike, the OEC crisis, the Winter of Discontent, the dismemberment of the Labour Party, the evolution of the Social Democratic Party and the impact of the Falklands War. He places in context Mrs Thatcher's rare disasters, such as the Westland Affair, and her dramatic successes, such as her visit to Moscow in 1987. In his brilliant and original analysis, he suggests reasons for Britain's diminished stature in the world and for the failure of traditional Tory or Labour policies to halt her decline. The time was ripe, he shows, for Mrs Thatcher to proclaim that 'conviction' policies and revived Victorian values could cure the nation's ills. After giving a lively account of why Mrs Thacther won and Neil Kinnock lost the 1987 General election, Jenkins focuses on the dramatic collapse of the Alliance and the 'self-destruction' of David Owen. His book ends with Mrs Thatcher triumphant, but it also raises a final, crucial question: can she yet ensure that the whole nation truly shares in her economic achievement? Jenkins's closeness to many of the people and events he describes has enabled him to illuminate this complex subject with a mix of shrewd insight, anecdotes and vivid thumbnail portraits. His authoritative book will lead us to question our preconceptions about contemporary politics and politicians.