Beaverbrook

A prodigious work of scholarship as well as a labor of love. Taylor's history of Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook whom Asquith once dubbed ""the little Canadian adventurer on the make"" spans some 50 years of British politics, the Depression and both Worm Wars. Beaverbrook -- financier, press lord, kingmaker, politician and historian -- is established beyond dispute as one of the dominant personages of 20th century British history. ""I did not make situations; I turned them to account,"" Beaverbrook once said of himself. It was this ability which earned him the reputation of unscrupulous,…