"This new book, drawn from the award-winning Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, brings together the life stories of more than 800 men and women who have shaped all aspects of the British past and who died between 2001 and 2004." "These are the people responsible for some of the major developments in the United Kingdom during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Alongside those who left their mark in politics, the arts, business, law, military service, sport, and education are leading figures in new branches of science and medicine such as genetics, transplantation, and computing - and in new forms of entertainment and communication." "Authoritative and accessible, the biographies in this volume are written by specialist authors, many of them leading figures in their field." --Book Jacket.