Towards the end, in his consideration of the future he cites the Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye, who first identified the concept of soft power, calling her one of Britain’s core soft-power assets. “I think Brexit reduced British soft power in much of the world, in terms of influence, but it did not affect the cultural attraction of the Queen.” Revision Col 3 Collins at Home | Support for schools Home tutors Letts Revision Collins4Parents Collins Book Sale Revision for students

Queen Elizabeth II — 12 books to understand her life and reign

Reference Col 1 Times Books A-Z Astronomy Gardening National Parks National Trust Books Road Maps & Atlases World AtlasesHardman has an easy style as befits a long-time journalist and former royal correspondent, author of three previous books about the Queen and a documentary filmmaker with a number of television documentaries on the royals. This biography by Ben Pimlott is generally considered the best political life of Elizabeth II. A former chairman of the Fabian Society — and biographer of Harold Wilson and Labour MP Hugh Dalton — Pimlott’s account of the Queen’s life is unsentimental. Updated in 2012 by Pimlott’s friend and colleague Peter Hennessy, it focuses on the Queen’s career as a constitutional monarch, her interventions in politics and the impact her leadership had on monarchy, government and diplomacy. Published to mark Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee, this is really a collection of observational writings from an array of people such as Margaret Thatcher, Sebastian Coe, Cecil Beaton, Eleanor Roosevelt, Cliff Richard, Nicola Sturgeon and Margaret Whitlam about their personal encounters with or views of the Queen.

Times Books | Queen Elizabeth II – Collins

remembers the glorious reign of Britain's longest-serving and much cherished monarch. Drawn from seven decades of detailed and fascinating reporting by The Times, discover insights and memories of the extraordinary period of social change that was our nation's second Elizabethan age. Elizabeth was young when smitten by Philip. They were eventually married in 1947, only two years after the end of the Second World War and remained so until his death in 2021. Who can forget the poignant image of the Queen sitting on her own at his funeral. Margaret had to find some sort of meaning to her life - read Craig Brown’s 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret for an original take on her life – but her sister, despite perhaps being exasperated by her partying, drinking, and divorce, never really deserted her during her many difficulties. Poor, sad Margaret died only a few weeks before the Queen Mother, a double blow for the Queen. Joanna Lumley, an out-and-out fan, knits it all together and says she wanted the book to be “a discovery of her (Elizabeth) through the eyes of other people ... this book is as if I had been let loose with my microphone and wandered about among people I met at random, asking ‘What do you remember of the Queen?’”Robert Hardman rejects the idea that Elizabeth II is a monarch “harassed by one reverse after another” and claims in this most recently published, full biography of the Queen that the “declinist narrative” overlooks one key fact: the monarch “genuinely likes being the Queen”. An unauthorised book published in 2012 for the Diamond Jubilee by an American journalist who has also written lives of Princess Diana, the Kennedys, the Clintons, and Prince Charles, Elizabeth the Queen looks at both the public and personal side of her life. It reveals, for example, the tension provoked by her decision not to take her husband’s surname (Mountbatten) and her feelings about the collapse of Charles and Diana’s relationship. Discover insights and memories of the extraordinary period of social change that was our nation’s second Elizabethan age.