David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party in Ireland, is one of the unlikeliest and most complicated political leaders of our times. Long reviled by nationalist Ireland and much of mainland opinion as an awkward and flinty loyalist extremist, both his admirers and detractors agree that the Good Friday Agreement could not have been made without him.
This biography gives a unique access to the politician and his papers. The interviews include discussions with Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern, Mo Mowlam, Gerry Adams, John Major and John Bruton, and more than three hundred other friends, foes and colleagues of the Unionist leader. This is a remarkable study of a man and his times, and an illuminating record of the political dynamics of the troubles and the complexity of the calculations which all leaders locked in such disputes must make.
