British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston has enjoyed a rakish reputation as a womanizer, a careless aristocrat and the apostle of big-stick diplomacy. His lengthy life linked the American Revolution and the Assasination of Lincoln, the French Revolution and the birth of the future of King George V, the age of Pitt with the days of Gladstone and Disraeli. His political career brought him three times to the Foreign Office and twice to the Premiership. He set out as a dutiful Conservative, became the darling of Radicals trhoughout Europe, and ended his career as ''Old Pam'', the personification of British courage and lion-heartedness. But there was more Palmerston than bluster and patriotism, as Judd clearly shows in this sympathetic, but critical, biography.

Denis Judd is Professor Emeritus of Imperial and Commonwealth History, London Metropolitan University , and Professor at New York University in London, UK.

List of illustrations;
Introduction
1. The Road to Westminster 1784-1809
2. The Tory Secretary at War 1809-28
3. The Whig Foreign Secretary 1830-4
4. Bully to the Weak? 1835-46
5. The Strong Arm of England 1846-51
6. Home Secretary 1852-5
7. The Inevitable Man: Prime Minister 1855-8
8. Old Pam: Prime Minister 1859-65
Select Bibliography
Index