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Full Circle
Memoirs covering his premiership from 1951 to 1957, including the Suez Crisis.
619 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1960
40 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Eden
40 books12 followersInstrumental British politician Sir Robert Anthony Eden, first earl of Avon, as foreign minister from 1935 to 1938, from 1940 to 1945, and from 1951 to 1955 founded the United Nations in 1945 and as prime minister from 1955 to 1957 supported the Anglo-French invasion of Egypt in 1956.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony...
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 29, 2017
In which Sir Anthony attempts to justify his actions during his third term as Foreign Secretary and his brief, disastrous premiership. Eden is right to crow about his effective diplomacy, helping arrange an (unfortunately temporary) end to the Indochina War, negotiating the entry of West Germany into NATO and otherwise strengthening (however temporarily) Anglo-European relationships. These are fine accomplishments worthy of praise. Then comes Suez, and Eden shows he learned nothing from the experience. He's still treating Nasser as a reincarnated Hitler or Mussolini, asserting the "rights" of imperial powers to enforce their will on Third World nations (which he puts in marginally more palatable terms of "free trade," etc.), dismissing the popular and political outcry against his botched incursion, and most damningly of all, denying the Anglo-French-Israeli collusion to bring about the war. Perhaps one should expect nothing more from a seasoned, self-covering politician, but it's especially galling from Eden, who portrays himself (against all external evidence) as a completely rational statesman responding to a world-historic provocation. History has judged otherwise.
March 7, 2015
After five decades just four persons added this book and all of them in “to-read” shelf!
June 15, 2020
I tend to feel this is one of the fundamental books for getting a good grasp on many issues in the early part of the Cold War.
And for the time it was a very candid autobiography, though people who look at the events through a different lens may not fully appreciate his outlook. I would recommend reading it with Robert Rhodes James's biography, and perhaps all three of the Eden Memoirs (1960, 1962,1965), so you can see the development of his views were from 1921 to 1956.
only later did Project Alpha get mentioned (see the book The Failure of the Eden Government, which was a failed project to have the Israelis allow Nasser a travel corridor from though the Sinai Penninsula to Jordan, much like a connection from West Germany to West Berlin)
As well as the Sevres Agreements which pretty much had to be deniable till Eden's death and the co-signers of the agreements. Much was made of the Machiavellian Strategy in the 50s to the early 70s on books on Suez and Eden, but Eden was facing the issues of the Suez Crisis in a 'Worst Case' scenario being a three front war of England sending troops into:
a. defending Jordan and King Hussein (by invading Jordan)
b. invading Egypt (for the Suez Canal)
c. Invading Israel to balance the Suez Canal and Jordan being attacked
The Mediterranean was probably the weakest point in Britain's military planning for any situation in the mid 1950s. Eden was trying his hardest not to have invade all three countries at the same time, and backchannels were set up so Israel would understand through the French, what were unacceptable issues if war were to break out. Robert Rhodes James goes into a lot of how Eden had a very cool reception in Israel, from the days of Palestine and Suez Conflict and the First Arab-Israeli war, but by the time of the Second Arab-Israeli War of 1967, a lot of people came to appreciate his understanding of the Middle East, and the issues of Nasser.
Another issue which Eden never spoke about in print was the tensions between John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles and the role of Britian and Nasser's Egypt in terms of the World Oil Supply and the wish for only Moscow and Washington DC to be a player in Middle-Eastern (and north African politics, after the the rise of the Shah of Iran in Persia, and the decline of the Baghdad Pact with the post-war changes and the elderly King Faisal of Iraq and the new movements after the British moved out their Military Bases.
I think of it as a more modest version of Dean Acheson's Present at the Creation.
And sadly not as appreciated as any of Churchill's memoirs.
And for the time it was a very candid autobiography, though people who look at the events through a different lens may not fully appreciate his outlook. I would recommend reading it with Robert Rhodes James's biography, and perhaps all three of the Eden Memoirs (1960, 1962,1965), so you can see the development of his views were from 1921 to 1956.
only later did Project Alpha get mentioned (see the book The Failure of the Eden Government, which was a failed project to have the Israelis allow Nasser a travel corridor from though the Sinai Penninsula to Jordan, much like a connection from West Germany to West Berlin)
As well as the Sevres Agreements which pretty much had to be deniable till Eden's death and the co-signers of the agreements. Much was made of the Machiavellian Strategy in the 50s to the early 70s on books on Suez and Eden, but Eden was facing the issues of the Suez Crisis in a 'Worst Case' scenario being a three front war of England sending troops into:
a. defending Jordan and King Hussein (by invading Jordan)
b. invading Egypt (for the Suez Canal)
c. Invading Israel to balance the Suez Canal and Jordan being attacked
The Mediterranean was probably the weakest point in Britain's military planning for any situation in the mid 1950s. Eden was trying his hardest not to have invade all three countries at the same time, and backchannels were set up so Israel would understand through the French, what were unacceptable issues if war were to break out. Robert Rhodes James goes into a lot of how Eden had a very cool reception in Israel, from the days of Palestine and Suez Conflict and the First Arab-Israeli war, but by the time of the Second Arab-Israeli War of 1967, a lot of people came to appreciate his understanding of the Middle East, and the issues of Nasser.
Another issue which Eden never spoke about in print was the tensions between John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles and the role of Britian and Nasser's Egypt in terms of the World Oil Supply and the wish for only Moscow and Washington DC to be a player in Middle-Eastern (and north African politics, after the the rise of the Shah of Iran in Persia, and the decline of the Baghdad Pact with the post-war changes and the elderly King Faisal of Iraq and the new movements after the British moved out their Military Bases.
I think of it as a more modest version of Dean Acheson's Present at the Creation.
And sadly not as appreciated as any of Churchill's memoirs.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews