Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Baldwin  By  cover art

Baldwin

By: Roy Jenkins
Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $16.36

Buy for $16.36

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

This is the first biography of Stanley Baldwin for more than 10 years, although there had been four in the preceding decade. This is strange, for Baldwin has recently begun to swim back into fashion. In part this is a function of growing nostalgia for his period of power, the 1920s and 1930s. Still more, however, it is because Mrs Thatcher's brand of Conservative leadership has made him an object of contrasting interest in a way that Harold Macmillan's or Edward Heath's never did.

When a new exponent of an alternative style temporarily achieves notice, it is now frequently suggested that he might be a new Baldwin. This reappraisal is therefore appropriately timed. It is written by a skilled political biographer, from a non-Conservative, although not personally unsympathetic, standpoint.

Baldwin was born in 1867, the son of a rich Worcestershire ironmaster, and educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. He then worked in the family business for 20 years. Although the most self-conscious countryman amongst British Prime Ministers of the past 100 years or more, he was not a country squire and never owned more than a few acres of land. He did not enter the House of Commons until he was 40, and was not even a junior minister until the threshold of 50. Less than six years later, in 1923, he became prime minister and dominated British politics for the next 15 years - the only man of this century to hold the highest office three times.

Elected to Parliament as a Labour member in 1948, Roy Jenkins (1920- 2003) served in several major posts in Harold Wilson's first government and as home secretary from 1965-1967. In 1987, Jenkins was elected to succeed Harold Macmillan as chancellor of the University of Oxford, following the latter's death, a position he held until his death. Jenkins grew to political maturity during the twilight of a great age of British parliamentary democracy. As much as Churchill, though in quite a different way, Jenkins has been from the cradle a creature of the system that nurtured Palmerston and Disraeli, Gladstone, Asquith, and Lloyd George.

©2013 Roy Jenkins (P)2013 Audible Ltd

What listeners say about Baldwin

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

My go to

audible book for helping me fall into sleep if a bit too restless. All in all, I've probably listened to it 20x over the years since its been in my audible library. That said, I enjoyed the book immensely as it illuminated much about Baldwin and the UK in the 20's and 30's for its somewhat short length or "tautness". It touches on many of his contemporaries with fascinating anecdotes of their relation to Stanley. Always enjoy the narrator Gordon Griffin for softly acquiring my attention or easing into slumber.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful