History of British foreign secretaries.

Robert Peel, as much as any man in the nineteenth century, transformed Great Britain into a modern nation. He invented our police force, which became a model for the world. He steered through the Bill which allowed Catholics to sit in Parliament. He reorganised the criminal justice system. He put Britain back on the gold standard; he invented the Conservative Party which we know today. He sent his constituents at Tamworth the first modern election manifesto. He settled Canada's border with the United States.

Above all he tackled poverty by repealing the Corn Laws. Thanks to Peel the most powerful trading nation chose free trade and opened the door for our globalised world of today.

Peel was not all politics. He built two great houses, filled them with famous pictures and was devoted to a beautiful wife. Yet he was a stiff, not easy to know. 'Such a cold odd man' wrote Queen Victoria - who later became a keen admirer - and Disraeli attacked him for dishonesty.

Many followers never forgave him for splitting his Party. But when in 1850 he was carried home after a fall from his horse crowds gathered outside, mainly of working people, to read the medical bulletins. When he died a few days later, factories closed, flags flew at half mast and thousands contributed small sums to memorials in his honour. He was the man who provided cheap bread and sacrificed his career for the welfare of ordinary people.

Douglas Hurd, like Peel, was Home Secretary and argued for Peel's One Nation philosophy. He too lived through a time of conflict in the Conservative Party and has watched its defeat and rebirth. In this biography, with one eye on the present, he charts Peel's life and work through the dramas of nineteenth-century politics.

ISBN: 978 0 297 84844 8

Douglas Hurd retired as Foreign Secretary in 1995 after a distinguished career in Government spanning 16 years. As Secretary of State for Ireland, Home Secretary and then six years in the Foreign Office in Margaret Thatcher and John Major's administrations, he was at the very heart of modern political decision-making. Earlier he had run Edward Heath's private office from 1968 to 1970 and acted as his Political Secretary when Heath was Prime Minister (1970-74). This, then, is the political memoir of a man who has been at the heart of government for a generation. A Life Peer since 1997, Hurd continues to write political novels and works in the City as Chairman of the Advisory Committee of Hawkpoint Partners.

ISBN: 0316861472

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After a narrow Labour Party victory that is dependent on Scottish Labour votes, the young, ambitious and right-wing Alcester sweeps in as Tory leader of the opposition. He has married the previous Prime Minister's daughter, and when their baby boy is kidnapped it leads to an upsurge of support for the bright new Party leader.

ISBN: 0 7515 3081 6

As an MP, Douglas Hurd would write a new short story every year during the summer Parliamentary recess. This collection comprises ten tales

ISBN: 0 7515 2661 4

Prime Minister Simon Russell's personal alarm clock is ticking away. Beyond No. 10, prison riots, bombs in Ireland, corporate blackmail in China and civil unrest in Russia jostle for his attention. As the pressure builds, his judgement and his relationships become distorted.

Contrary to the claim that a diplomat is paid to lie for his country, former Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd contends that from Machievelli to Metternich, from Sir Edward Grey to Boutros-Boutros Ghali, a top diplomat's main function is the genuine search for peace. His chronological narrative of the international affairs of the 20th century focuses on the lead-up to World War I, the peace of 1919 and its failure, the build-up to the 1939-45 war, the post-war settlement to Suez, the United Nations and the Congo, Kissinger and Vietnam, and the war in Bosnia.