Michael Foot has been a controversial and charismatic figure in British public life for more than sixty years. He rose as a crusading leftwing journalist in the late 1930s; his book The Guilty Men , on pre-war appeasers of Nazi Germany, is one of the great radical tracts of British history. He has long been the voice of libertarian socialism in parliament, has served as a government minister, and was Labour party leader between 1980 and 1983. His political friendships with the most prominent politicians of his time were passionate and profound, but he also had a remarkable and quite different career as a man of letters, with Dean Swift, Tom Paine, Byron, and Wordsworth amongst his heroes. Fully authorized yet fairly balanced, this is account does full justice to both the public and the private side of Michael Foot, as well as to his different roles as journalist, politician, and literati.