Margaret Thatcher. Formazione e ascesa di un leader.

The thesis sets out to examine the character of British politician Margaret Thatcher, following the path of her life and her career since her years at the University of Oxford, where she studied chemistry, to her election as the leader of the Conservative Party in 1975. The investigation has been conducted by examining a number of sources and documents: minutes of meetings, electoral speeches and manifestos, accounts of informal exchanges, transcripts of parliamentary debates, articles and editorials published in both local and national newspapers. The aim of the research, on the one hand, is that of filling a gap in the Italian scholarly literature on the subject, while, on the other hand, bringing to light a number of underestimated factors, which have in time contributed to turning the “Grantham girl” into a world leader. The investigation covers three decades during which Thatcher has evolved from “the grocer’s daughter” into “the iron lady”. The originality of the research consists in its attempt to show to what extent the main traits of what will get to be known as Thatcherism started to emerge well before Thatcher’s election to the role of prime minister and, therefore, how the political climax of her story had already reached its peak in 1975. By examining the crucial events which marked Thatcher personal and political history the thesis aims at providing a picture of British society during the period under scrutiny as well as at unveiling a degree of complexity, in both Thatcher and British society, which has often been under investigated.