It must be unusual for an academic conference to be addressed by its subject, particularly when that subject has shown herself in the past to be so contemptuous of any academic or even sophisticated thought. This is what happened in March 2000, when the Hofstra University on Long Island, New York, hosted a conference entitled “The Thatcher Years: The Rebirth of Liberty?” at the same time as conferring on her an honorary degree. If this collection of papers from the conference is representative—and at least one that was delivered there has not found its way into it: a paper by Joseph Morrison Skelly apparently praising Thatcher's and Reagan's resistance to Irish terrorism, which was protested by some Irish Americans at the time (see http://www.bu.edu/historic/winter01.html)—very few contributors addressed the “Liberty” part of the conference title, apart from Thatcher herself, who in her paper (reproduced here) objected to the question mark after it. “Liberty—or freedom if you like—is a perfectly simple concept, understandable to all, it seems, except to the very dim or the very clever” (2). I imagine that even her supporters, if they are academics, will be embarrassed by that. It is typical, of course, of her anti-intellectual and uncritical approach.

This book has a different title, which some of the thirty-three chapters in it do address, but not all. The contributors are a mixed bag: mainly American academics, but a few British and Canadians, and three or four politicians. More than one paper describes the conference as a “love-in,” but it did, to be fair, also allow some critical views. At one extreme there is a priceless piece of hagiography by Caspar Weinberger, which paints Thatcher as the shining knight who single-handedly rescued the world from evil (aka socialism) and returned it to the path of good and truth. That is the Hollywood version. It is also, of course, Thatcher's own. Rather wickedly, the editor follows that with a very good piece by Philip Allmendinger that reveals this kind of thing as the “mythology” it undoubtedly is. The most hostile pieces are David Monaghan's critical account of her support for Pinochet, and (implicitly, at any rate) the British MP Leo Abse's psychoanalysis of her on the basis of her notorious “ablation” of her mother. “She did not concede she was born of woman.” Candace Hetzner also criticizes her, but for not being Thatcherite enough. In between, the fullest and most balanced assessments, apart from Allmendinger’s, are by Dennis Kavanagh (two chapters), Jeremy Moon, and Michael Genovese. There are also some useful accounts of particular aspects of her career, which are generally nonjudgmental: Peter Dorey on her “taming” of the trade unions; Bruce Geelhoed on the 1987 election; Diane Antonio on her as the “embodiment of feminine power” (a difficult piece); Frank Smist and Zachary Stolz on Thatcher, Reagan, and Saddam Hussein, regretting that no world leader has been found to stand up to him since their departure, which illustrates the perils of going into print so long after the event; Dov Zakheim on Thatcher-Reagan relations over the Falklands war; Leonard Quart and Simon Doubleday on British cinema in the 1980s; Martin Durham on her government and “family values” (showing how distant from the American Christian Right she always was, despite appearances); Charles Dellheim on Thatcher and the Jews; and the late Ben Pimlott on her relations with the queen. There are also two valuable—albeit contrasting—views of the contribution of the Thatcher years to the creation of “New Labour,” by Kavanagh and the Labour MP Tony Wright.

One of the interesting aspects of this collection is the gulf between American and British attitudes that it reveals. It is not just that the former are generally more favorable to her, though they are. Several British contributors (Moon and Wright, e.g., together with the American Genovese) point out that she never really won the “hearts and minds” of the British people, which is why, as Abse writes, as she “conquers America” (today) she “increasingly estranges herself from Britain.” Some American contributors appear to be unaware of this. All the unqualified admirers are American (and one Canadian: ex–Prime Minister Brian Mulroney). These are also the ones who assume that Britain was “a socialist state” (Duane Windsor) before she came on to the scene, which reads oddly to a British reader, and have fewer philosophical problems with the idea of “liberty” than we have. Read from the British side of the water, they appear to be trapped within a very narrow discourse indeed. Beyond that, however, there is a further problem. The book is supposed to be about Thatcher's “legacy.” That involves—surely—disentangling her personal achievement from what would probably have happened anyway. A few contributors grapple with this: Kavanagh, Moon, Allmendinger (all British), and Genovese (American). Peter Riddell (British) and Wayne Hunt (Canadian) also touch on it. For the great majority of the American contributors, however, this appears to be unproblematical. If what she wanted to happen happened, then it was her doing. Post hoc ergo propter … This of course is one of the basic traps that all academics are warned against, together with taking words like “liberty” for granted. It may be another symptom of that “narrow discourse,” again. Some American scholars seem scarcely to have progressed beyond the “Carlyle,” or great man (or woman), view of human events.

All in all, therefore, this is an uneven collection, as most such productions are. Though first impressions are not encouraging—there are three portraits of the lady on the dust jacket and starting with Thatcher herself on “Liberty” doesn’t bode well—there are enough pebbles under the mattress here to give her an uncomfortable night. Her authoritarianism in particular comes through well, though it is often called “leadership.” (Are Americans unaware of the antidemocratic implications of this?) In particular, one hopes that Thatcher was not there for Leo Abse's paper. Or for some of the other British ones, which would certainly have confirmed her prejudices against academia.