Iron Lady

MAGGIE by Chris Ogden

Simon & Schuster

384 pages; $22.95

She has been called "Reagan with brains," and she once referred to herself, in a rare try at humor, as "Genghis Khan." Such japes are a bit hard on the ex-President and the late Mongol scourge. Margaret Thatcher, Britain's highly conservative Prime Minister, is hard to humanize. Still, when Britain needed to be put to bed without its supper after decades of infantile class warfare, she did the job. Now unemployment is high, and education and health care are poorer. But Britain's economy and pride have perked up, and the middle class is prospering.

With scenes of home and hearth as well as policymaking, Chris Ogden, a TIME correspondent and former London bureau chief, provides an intimate portrait of a woman known for her tough exterior. Extremes of hard work and self-reliance are her sturdy British virtues; her dark side is an absence of compassion for those who lack the will -- and luck -- to succeed.