This book provides a good overview of the PMs during the 20th century. However, I would have much preferred the author to concentrate the ~20 or so pages allotted to each on the politics and policies pursued while in office. Instead, each chapter also attempts to serve as a mini biography and in many cases presents what I considered to be irrelevant or uninteresting information about childhood experiences or relatives. This also has the effect of reducing the amount coverage given to the information that I wanted. These observations may be partially attributed to the structure of the book, in which the author has decided to arbitrarily assign a standardised chapter size to each PM, irrespective of duration of tenure or political impact. This leads to the slightly odd situation of political non-entities, e.g. Alec Douglas-Home or Balfour, being devoted similar coverage to titans like Churchill or Lloyd George. This I found unsatisfactory.

Other observations that I would make include: a complete lack of primary research by the author (he has relied upon biographies), a rather annoying pro-EU sentiment that is evident throughout the book and an admirable, particularly given his status as a labour MP, sense of political objectivity when discussing the achievements of PMs from both sides of the house.

This is a useful, single-volume summary of the history of our recent leaders that is good, if not great. ( )