An entertaining and authoritative study of leadership in the British civil service from one of the top authors in the field. Kevin Theakston draws the lessons of how change in central government can be managed and implemented from a series of biographical studies of the acknowledged leaders in the civil service in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - from Charles Trevelyan, the founder of the modern civil service, to modern Mandarins such as Robert Armstrong and Margaret Thatcher's personal adviser the outsider Sir Derek Rayner. The case studies are linked to the wider themes of leadership and administrative culture in Whitehall, illustrating the patterns of change and continuity over time. This highly readable and innovative study will appeal to students of British politics and government, public administration, public policy, political history and comparative politics as well as policymakers, civil servants and others interested in the policymaking and governing process.

KEVIN THEAKSTON is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Leeds and the author of Junior Ministers in British Government, The Labour Party and Whitehall and The Civil Service in 1945. He is among the best known writers on the British Civil Service. This book arises from his research for the ESRC Whitehall Programme. His accompanying edited volume on Bureaucrats and Leadership covering Britain, Europe and the United States will also be published in the Transforming Government series.

Acknowledgments Introduction Charles Trevelyan Warren Fisher Edward Bridges Norman Brook Evelyn Sharp 'Otto' Clarke William Armstrong Robert Armstrong Derek Rayner Conclusion