GOLDSMITH, Money, Women and Power
By Chris Hutchins and Dominic Midgley
Mainstream Publishing, 1998, £16.99
Sir James Goldsmith was one of the most intriguing figures of the twentieth century but as a billionaire with a taste for litigation he successfully ensured that, for much of his life, his background, methods and ambitions escaped far-reaching investigation. This is the first unauthorised biography of Goldsmith and it deals with every aspect of his complex life despite his unsuccessful efforts to obstruct it by forbidding his family and friends to talk to the authors.
This is a book for anyone interested in how great fortunes are built, the future of Europe, the ongoing controversy over environmental issues and - of course - how a charismatic man can juggle a succession of wives and mistresses. From winning a huge sum on a bet while still a schoolboy at Eton, he went on to build a personal fortune approaching £2 billion through a series of audacious takeover deals in both Europe and the United States.
As a husband and lover, he collected women of wealth and position who would ensure that his friendships and influence touched the highest social circles. When he eloped at the age of twenty, it was with the daughter of a fabulously wealthy South American tin magnate. Next, he married, his French secretary, but not before he had wooed and won Lady Annabel Birley, one of the most aristocratic women in Britain, who would later become a close confidante of Princess Diana. She, in turn, was replaced as his mistress by a niece of the Comte de Paris, the pretender to the French throne.
In his quest for political power, he made the politics of the European superstate his battleground, founding movements on both sides of the English Channel and ploughing £20 million into his Eurosceptic Referendum Party in a bid to stamp his will on the government of the day. But even as he fought the campaign, he was in the final stages of a long and courageous battle against cancer, and died on 19 July 1997.
Has he equipped his children to exploit the fortune he has left to build a vast business empire or has he condemned them to gilded obscurity? Goldsmith tells the incredible story of an extraordinary man and the legacy he has left his family and the world.
By Chris Hutchins and Dominic Midgley
Mainstream Publishing, 1998, £16.99
Sir James Goldsmith was one of the most intriguing figures of the twentieth century but as a billionaire with a taste for litigation he successfully ensured that, for much of his life, his background, methods and ambitions escaped far-reaching investigation. This is the first unauthorised biography of Goldsmith and it deals with every aspect of his complex life despite his unsuccessful efforts to obstruct it by forbidding his family and friends to talk to the authors.
This is a book for anyone interested in how great fortunes are built, the future of Europe, the ongoing controversy over environmental issues and - of course - how a charismatic man can juggle a succession of wives and mistresses. From winning a huge sum on a bet while still a schoolboy at Eton, he went on to build a personal fortune approaching £2 billion through a series of audacious takeover deals in both Europe and the United States.
As a husband and lover, he collected women of wealth and position who would ensure that his friendships and influence touched the highest social circles. When he eloped at the age of twenty, it was with the daughter of a fabulously wealthy South American tin magnate. Next, he married, his French secretary, but not before he had wooed and won Lady Annabel Birley, one of the most aristocratic women in Britain, who would later become a close confidante of Princess Diana. She, in turn, was replaced as his mistress by a niece of the Comte de Paris, the pretender to the French throne.
In his quest for political power, he made the politics of the European superstate his battleground, founding movements on both sides of the English Channel and ploughing £20 million into his Eurosceptic Referendum Party in a bid to stamp his will on the government of the day. But even as he fought the campaign, he was in the final stages of a long and courageous battle against cancer, and died on 19 July 1997.
Has he equipped his children to exploit the fortune he has left to build a vast business empire or has he condemned them to gilded obscurity? Goldsmith tells the incredible story of an extraordinary man and the legacy he has left his family and the world.