Sloane, whose books include The Women in the Room: Labour’s Forgotten History (2018), continues to shine a light on the overlooked contributions of female politicians in her latest biography. Margaret Bondfield (1873-1953) led an extraordinary life. At age 16, after working in a London drapery store, she went undercover to report on the appalling conditions for women and domestic servants. She was intimidated and fired, and even though she was only 5 feet tall (eventually having trouble seeing over the podium in the House of Commons), she began working for her trade union. Bondfield was a founding member of what became the Labour Party. The First World War brought opportunities for women, but after the war, women returned to unemployment. Sloane writes of Bondfield’s relationship with Maud Ward. She was “an elusive figure,” Sloane says of Bondfield’s friend, but the author writes touchingly of the two women going on a walking holiday together. “They walked miles every day over every kind of terrain, enjoying stormy weather as much as the hot sunshine. Bondfield, who had never really had the time for proper holidays before, was converted.” Bondfield was eventually elected as a Member of Parliament for Wallsend. She traveled to Moscow and met Lenin: “He suggests by his manner a more or less confidential exchange of opinions. But when the interview is over, it is found that he has told you far less than you have told him.” In 1929, she was made Minister of Labour. The government fell, and she lost her seat. It is to Sloane’s credit that she brings attention to a largely forgotten and important figure. Nonetheless, much of the narrative is devoted to tedious legislative arguments written in lackluster prose. Bondfield was a plucky woman who rose from West Country poverty to the British Cabinet. Sloane doesn’t help us understand enough why so many not only voted for her, but also loved her.