Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914) was the first industrialist to reach the highest sphere of British politics. Notably successful as a young man in Birmingham's metal-manufacturing industry, he tackled politics as business―venture by venture, innovative in organization as well as product, alert to the importance of accounting and marketing. Aggressive and direct in both personality and principle, he was loyal to enterprise rather than to party. He never became prime minister, yet by the beginning of the twentieth century he was by general consent "the first minister of the British Empire." This book by Peter T. Marsh is the first complete, archivally based, single-volume biography of Chamberlain. Skillfully dissecting his political career, Marsh reveals Chamberlain's radically fresh approach to most of Britain's problems between the Second Reform Act and the First World War. He also highlights the distortions and discontinuities: the breach with Gladstone over Irish Home Rule, which drove Chamberlain from the left of the Liberal party into enduring alliance with the Conservative right; how Chamberlain came to be the champion of the House of Lords instead of its scourge; the cause and effects of Chamberlain's shift from free trader to protectionist. In addition, Marsh explains Chamberlain's internationalism, his involvement in South Africa, Canada, and the United States, and his sustained campaign to develop the Empire's "undeveloped estates." Searching and judicious, the book evokes the contradictions in Chamberlain's personality and private life, his vigor, intensity, and imperious self-confidence along with his inner desolation and lifelong nervous strain. Finely written and argued, the book makes compelling reading, presenting the story of a life that is one of the most absorbing in modern British politics. The bull in the political china shop in late Victorian Britain, Chamberlain, over a 30-year parliamentary career, ditched the Liberal Gladstone, irritated the Conservative Salisbury, perhaps felled Irish nationalist Charles Parnell in an adultery scandal, and promoted the scrambling imperial policy that ushered in the Boer War. For all that excitement, this colorful figure has been written up but once before (in J. L. Garvin's 1969 study, now out of print). Marsh is the first American scholar to wade into the primary materials; he begins with Chamberlain's industrial success, which earned him the moniker the Screw King and enabled him to enter politics. Chamberlain became mayor of Birmingham and reformed the city's education and sanitation systems--his greatest accomplishments in Marsh's judgment. The bulk of this biography, however, involves his term as colonial secretary from 1895 to 1903. Chamberlain's son Neville is better known to the historically minded, but readers interested in the father will never get better than this definitive "life." For large libraries. Gilbert Taylor Joseph Chamberlain was the first industrialist to reach the highest sphere of British politics. Conspicuously successful as a young man in Birmingham's metal-manufacturing industry, he later tackled politics as business, venture by venture, innovative in organisation as well as product, alert to the importance of accounting and marketing. Aggressive and direct in both personality and principle, Chamberlain was loyal to enterprise rather than to party. He shattered Britain's two major political parties and never became prime minister, yet by the beginning of the twentieth century was by general consent 'the first minister of the British Empire'. The vast range of Chamberlain's life has defeated many previous biographers. After twelve years of exhaustive study in archives around the globe, Marsh has produced the first full, archivally-based, single-volume account. Skillfully dissecting the political career, he reveals Chamberlain's radically individual approach to most of Britain's problems between the Second Reform Act and the First World War. Marsh highlights too the distortions and discontinuities: the breach with Gladstone over Irish Home Rule, which drove Chamberlain from the left of the Liberal party into enduring alliance with the Conservative right; the scourge of the House of Lords who became its champion; the free trader who died a protectionist. And he explains the internationalism, the involvement in South Africa, Canada and the United States, and the sustained campaign to develop the British Empire's 'undeveloped estates'. Searching and judicious, the book evokes the contradictions in Chamberlain's personality and private life, the vigour, intensity and imperiousself-confidence alongside the inner desolation and lifelong nervous strain. It makes compelling reading, presenting a life story which is one of the most absorbing in modern British politics. Peter T. Marsh is Professor of History and International Relations at Syracuse University.