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S. J. Ball, Banquo's Ghost: Lord Salisbury, Harold Macmillan, and the High Politics of Decolonization, 1957–1963, Twentieth Century British History, Volume 16, Issue 1, March 2005, Pages 74–102, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwi007
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Abstract
This article reconstructs the bitter political argument between Lord Salisbury and Harold Macmillan over decolonization. In order to do so it makes extensive use of their private papers. It describes their view of each other and their political manoeuvres. The article argues that Macmillan and Salisbury themselves were so obsessed by their conflict that it dominated much of the prime minister's thinking on the empire throughout his premiership. The obsessive nature of the struggle was a result of genuine ideological differences but took on its particular character because the two principals had known each since their schooldays. The account contends that a political contest between intimates can best be understood through the lens of ‘intimate history’.
