Mountbatten

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985. First American Edition [stated]. Presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/Fair. 784, [2] pages. Endpaper charts. Illustrations. Maps. Charts. Notes. Bibliographical Notes. Index. Some wear and tears to DJ. Sticker residue at back of DJ. Philip Sandeman Ziegler CVO FRSL (born 24 December 1929) is a British biographer and historian. He attended Eton College and New College, Oxford, graduating with a degree in Jurisprudence with highest honours before joining the British Foreign Service. In the Foreign Service, he served in Laos, Pretoria and Bogot�, as well as with the Delegation to NATO in Paris. In 1967 he resigned from the Foreign Service, and joined the publishers Collins. Originally intending to be a novelist, he began a career as biographer with his life of Talleyrand's lover, the Duchess of Dino. He was editor in chief at Collins from 1979 to 1980. He has written in various journals and newspapers including The Spectator, The Listener, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and History Today. Derived from a Kirkus review: This is the official biography of Lord Louis Mountbatten (1900-1979) and it pronounces him, all told, "a GREAT MAN." But Mountbatten's well-known faults in evidence in Ziegler's scrupulous rendering. We see the personable naval cadet--already stung by his German-born father's forced exit (1914) as First Sea Lord--suddenly head his class, and determine never to settle for anything less. He makes friends with clever, subversive sorts; he compiles dossiers on the men under his command--groundwork for their fabled loyalty. He works feverishly, strives mightily. He is married to heiress Edwina, his match in looks and panache but temperamentally his opposite--restless, peevish, independent. Ziegler suggests that Mountbatten's rejection by Edwina "was in part responsible for [his] furious ambition." Ziegler details Mountbatten's career to precisely define, and delimit, his accomplishments. Mountbatten was an energetic, imaginative organizer/administrator of Combined Operations--pioneer of amphibious warfare, proponent of Normandy as the invasion-site, champion of the artificial harbor, Mulberry. The Dieppe raid, one of the two black marks against Mountbatten, Ziegler finds flawed in concept, further compromised by decisions Mountbatten opposed, disastrously executed for reasons over which he had no control. As Supreme Commander, South-East Asia, he overcame formidable obstacles; as Viceroy of India, he could not have forestalled partition, while delay would only have made matters worse--a view in which most authorities do concur. As for the relationship between Edwina and Nehru, Mountbatten is depicted as approving. Mountbatten's subsequent, lesser-known career gets no less close attention, as does his "hyperactive" retirement. Ziegler achieves a firm, delicate balance.