Alfred Harmsworth, later Viscount Northcliffe, was a perplexing blend of megalomania and perspicacity. Taking his cue from the increasing literacy of the masses in the second half of the 19th century, he saw a niche that could only widen, and devoted his attentions to filling it. Starting with a few minor magazines to test the water (from Cycling News to the wildly successful Answers to Correspondents), his rapid domination of the periodical market led to a daily platform with the Evening News and then the Daily Mail. In the early years of the 20th century,The Observer, The Times and the Daily Mirror were added. From his first publications he learnt the value of rapport between editors and their readers, a lesson in propaganda which many were to later copy, but few with such distinctive success.He was by nature a conservative man and an avid imperialist. The rallying work he did during the war was somewhat sullied by the punitive attitude he adopted to Germany after its end and his tragicomic ending--threatening to shoot his dressing gown and uttering the famous last words "Tell mother she is the only one". This can be seen as some kind of nemesis though the real cause was septic endocarditis, not the tertiary syphilis rumoured at the time. An early publisher wanted a biography of Northcliffe which would "be for biographies what the Daily Mail was to its contemporaries when it first appeared". J. Lee Thompson"s handsome, meticulous account sensibly makes no attempt to meet this impossible demand. Instead he chooses to focus on the political side of Northcliffe--who was essentially a barker rather than a biter--and his relationships with significant players such as Asquith, Balfour, Churchill, Lloyd George (who fittingly fell from power within months of his old sparring partner"s death), and of course the Empire. Details of his more personal relationships--with his mother, his wife (who was childless) and his mistress (who bore him three children)--are patchy, and might have tempted a more prurient chronicler than Thompson. However, while it won"t prove the last word, his book proves an earnestly assured assessment of Britain"s Citizen Kane, its first press baron, whose legacy still sits on the news-stands. --David Vincent