Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World
Encyclopedia
Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World is a book on politics and international relations written by Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

 in 2003 and was published by Harper Perennial.

Synopsis

Looking at the lessons learnt during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

 Lady Thatcher writes of the United States being the only remaining superpower
Superpower
A superpower is a state with a dominant position in the international system which has the ability to influence events and its own interests and project power on a worldwide scale to protect those interests...

, and the responsibilities which come with that burden.

She also writes about the dangers inherent in the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

 given the instability of the region and the rise of Islamic Extremism
Islamic extremism
Islamic extremism refers to two related and partially overlapping but also distinct aspects of extremist interpretations and pursuits of Islamic ideology:...

.

Reception

Bill Emmott writing in the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

 said, "Europeans, Asians, Latin Americans (except Pinochet) and Africans simply don't have a chance in Thatcher's eyes. They do not trace back their political and legal values to the Magna Carta. They are all, in her eyes, collectivists rather than freedom-loving individuals. It is all the more surprising therefore that having supported British membership of the European Union during the 1970s and having helped to deepen that market during her time as prime minister, she now thinks Britain ought to leave that ghastly grouping, run as it is by bureaucrats and foreigners. To be critical of European countries and of the European institutions is fine: There is plenty to criticize and to change. But in this book Thatcher goes beyond that, arguing in essence that Europe is always to be distrusted because it is full of Europeans and in her lifetime Europeans have always caused trouble."

Francis Maude writing for the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....

 said, "Thatcher's latest and, she says, last book is not really what it says. Its title suggests a manual for practitioners of statecraft, a sort of Macchiavelli's The Prince for our times. Such practitioners will find Statecraft well worth reading, as will all those with an interest in international affairs, because this is an account of Thatcher's views about the world, its recent histories and what should be done. It is broad in scope, detailed in analysis and, as you would expect, forthright in prescription. And prescription is in plentiful supply".

Michael Collins has written in Contemporary Review
Contemporary Review
-Foundation:It was founded in 1866 by Alexander Strahan and a group of intellectuals anxious to promote intelligent and independent opinion about the great issues of their day. They intended it to be the church-minded counterpart of the resolutely secular Fortnightly Review, which was founded by...

, "Statecraft is aimed as much at decision-makers in the US as at a domestic readership. In fact fewer than a fifth of the book's magisterial and incisive survey of current world affairs is concerned with the European Union. Most of it is composed of observations derived from meetings with world leaders and briefings from well-placed sources. Lady Thatcher takes a typically no-nonsense approach to the realities of power politics and warns that battlefield nuclear weapons will be used in the foreseeable future. Yet 'since the end of the Cold War' she argues, 'the West has let down its guard'. Two powers came out big winners at the end of the Cold War: the United States and China".
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