A Life of Contrasts: The Autobiography of Diana Mitford Mosley

by Diana Mitford Mosley

Book Overview

An autobiography of Diana Mitford describing how it came about that both Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler adored her, and Evelyn Waugh and Oswald Mosley fell in love with her. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812907582
• ISBN13: 9780812907582
• Release Date: January 1977
• Publisher: Not Avail
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.29 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Life of Contrasts

Excellent book in excellent shape, like new! The Mitford Sisters are quite interesting Thanks!

Beauty beyond compare

A Life of Contrasts is a carefully written, brilliant biography by perhaps the most beautiful woman of the 20th Century. Few men who ever met her failed to fall in love with her. That says alot. We are all attracted strongly to beautiful people of the opposite sex, but love is so much deeper. Her wit and charm, despite her controversial political views will endure. Her politics will fade like dust in the wind.

How she thinks

Reading Diana Mitford Mosley's self-serving autobiography was a fascinating exercise. First of all, I have to say, none of her children were in prison with her. As for 18B, she has a point, but. Great Britain is not the first democratic government to imprison people without a trial in wartime. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in the US during the civil war and the US, to its eternal discredit, rounded up all Japanese-Americans and simply interned them during WW2. (And let's not even talk about George Bush!) The fact is, the Mosleys and other Fascists fared far better in British prisons than opponents of the Fascists in Germany and Italy and lived to tell the tale. I've often wondered how people living in a democracy could justify their support of Fascism. Diana Mosley typically engages in special pleading e.g. "Not allowing free travel is one of the typical features of socialism everywhere." ch. 20 p. 218, "A Life of Contrasts". Well okay, but if the Jews in Europe had been permitted free travel, six million of them wouldn't have been gassed and incinerated. It's not as if Fascists or Nazis permitted free travel for gypsies, socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses or political opponents either. As the guardian of her adored Mosley's shrine, she works hard to burnish his place in history. She does this by simply gliding over or omitting uncomfortable or ugly facts. Ditto with the facts surrounding the behavior of her sister Unity. (the Communist Jessica adored Unity too and was also at pains to glide over her behavior, particularly after Unity's unsuccessful and permanently debilitating suicide attempt). Diana also glosses over the routine anti-semitism and bigotry that pervade the upper class world she comes from and inhabits her entire life, as well as Mosley's record on the subject. She does include, tellingly, some "throwaway" anti-semitic remarks that occur along the line. She simply has a gargantuan sense of entitlement which seems to be the common feature of many of the aristocratic friends she talks about. She tells one story during which her son and two other men "hide" so that she can flag down a stray motorist to help her change a flat tire. They didn't know how to do it. Allegedly. She admits to being embarrassed when they appear prematurely before the job was completed. I guess it's salutory to watch the lower classes "work." It's just so typical of those in her world. Her sister Nancy, in a letter to a family friend (Mrs. "Ham") much-quoted in the world of Mitfordania, basically says that if one is an aristocrat, one fears Communists; if one is a Jew, one fears Nazis, but as for the ideologies themselves, both Communists and Nazis are both fiends, a salient point to my mind. The Mitfords provided copy and entertainment for an entire generation. How could one family produce so many brainy and diverse individuals? There are biographies about and books by Jessica, Unity, Nancy, Diana and Deborah (who is the last surviving siblin