Anthony Forster examines the British government's negotiation of the Treaty on European Union (the Maastricht Treaty) which took place between December 1990 and December 1991. He provides a detailed account of both strands of the negotiations, the Intergovernmental Conference on Political Union (IGC-PU) and the Intergovernmental Conference on Economic and Monetary Union (IGC-EMU). On the basis of documentary and interview-based evidence of leading participants from Britain and Europe, he casts doubt on the claim that the government won the negotiations game, set and match and analyses the enormous party-management problems and international pressures that John Major had to balance on succeeding Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister.