Edwardian Requiem: A Life of Sir Edward Grey

An admiring biography of the statesman-ornithologist…Waterhouse makes an excellent, if sometimes, over-emphatic case for Grey’s achievements as a statesman… Most interestingly, he demonstrates how Grey was the first important British politician to build a “special relationship” with the United States. –The Telegraph

If you want to learn everything about this enigmatic and contradictory figure, who much preferred fly fishing and nature walks to the rough and tumble of the political world, get this comprehensive and illuminating biography. For [sic] Michael Waterhouse… really knows his stuff and has delved right under his subject’s skin… The result is a fascinating study of an essentially unambitious man whose correspondence repeatedly reveals that he found politics and its machinations a right old drudge… Waterhouse, like others before him, believes that Grey, not surprisingly, had several affairs… a welcome bit of spice to a tale that might otherwise get bogged down by too much politics and diplomacy… This biography’s great strength is that it reveals what really made the mysterious Grey tick and that is, after all, what should be the objective of every writer in this literary genre. –The Oldie

It is a well-researched and admirably fair account of a man who, for more than 15 years, played a critically important role in the formulation of British foreign policy. No Englishman could have prevented the 1914-1918 war. Grey got as close to it as anyone could have done, and Waterhouse should be thanked for reminding us of his existence. –The Spectator

Waterhouse is to be congratulated for presenting such a fully rounded portrait of a man unfairly accused of leading Britain into the most disastrous war in modern history…This biography makes clear how vital it is for any statesman to possess what Denis Healey famously described as hinterland . –History Today

This book… must rank among the finest political biographies of recent years. –The House

A good portrait of Grey the man. –New Statesman

This book provides a remarkable portrait of a double life… Grey’s patient diplomacy in the cause of freedom is rightly and eloquently applauded in this important book which must rank among the finest political biographies of recent years. – –The House Magazine