How, in a country so fanatically committed to conservative traditions as England, could an unknown upstart, a foreigner who had no money, no connections, no university education, and who had not even graduated from high school, achieve supreme power? He failed as a businessman, he had a difficult personal life and many envious people and enemies, but he managed, though not always in righteous ways, to overcome all obstacles and become the most outstanding prime minister of Great Britain in the 19th century. For a wide range of readers.