Publication date: 2001-06-18
RRP: £19.99
Price: £0.01
Review Palestine Twilight: Archaeology of the Holy Land and the Murder of Dr. Albert Glock / HarperCollins Publishers Ltd:
Edition: Reprint
Publication date: 2008-04-29
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £9.82
Price: £5.22
Review Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations / Farrar Straus Giroux:
Edition: 1st Simon & Schuster Pbk. Ed
Publication date: 2004-09-20
Dewey code: 973.931092
Price: £9.82
Review The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill / Simon and Schuster:The George W Bush White House, as described by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill in The Price of Loyalty, is a world out of kilter. Policy decisions are determined not by careful weighing of an issue's complexities; rather, they're dictated by a cabal of ideologues and political advisors operating outside the view of top cabinet officials. The President is not a fully engaged administrator but an enigma who is, at best, guarded and poker-faced but at worst, uncurious, unintelligent and a puppet of larger forces. O'Neill provided extensive documentation to journalist and author Suskind, including schedules with 7,630 entries and a set of 19,000 documents that featured memoranda to the President, thank-you notes, meeting minutes and voluminous reports. The result, The Price of Loyalty, is a gripping look inside the meeting rooms, the in-boxes and the minds of a famously guarded administration. Much of the book, as one might expect from the story of a Treasury Secretary, revolves around economics, but even those not normally enthused by tax-code intricacies will be fascinated by the rapid-fire intellects of O'Neill and Fed chairman Alan Greenspan as they gather for regular power breakfasts. A good deal of the book is about the things that O'Neill never figures out. He knows there's something creepy going on with the administration's power structure, but he's never inside enough to know quite what it is. But while those sections are intriguing, other passages are simply revelatory: O'Neill asserts that Saddam Hussein was targeted for removal not in the 9/11 aftermath but soon after Bush took office. Paul O'Neill makes for an interesting protagonist. [+]A vaunted economist from the days of Nixon and Ford, he returns to a Washington that's immeasurably more cut-throat. And while he appears almost naïvely academic initially, he emerges as someone determined to speak his mind even when it becomes apparent that such an approach spells his political doom. -John Moe, Amazon. com.
Publication date: 2002-06-01
Dewey code: 355
RRP: £19.95
Price: £4.53
Review The Good Soldier / Aegis Consulting Group:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2003-08-21
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £8.99
Price: £6.98
Review George V's Children / Sutton Publishing Ltd:
Edition: Tra
Publication date: 2007-06-19
Dewey code: 973.04960730092
RRP: £11.09
Price: £5.80
Review La Audacia de La Esperanza: Reflexiones Sobre Ca3mo Restaurar El Sueao Americano = The Audacity of Hope (Vintage Espanol) / Vintage Books USA:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2002-09-05
Dewey code: 940
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.00
Review The Rise and Fall of Napoleon: Fall v.2: Fall Vol 2 / Abacus:
Publication date: 2001-10-24
Dewey code: 332.645092
RRP: £16.99
Price: £7.60
Review Jesse Livermore: Worlds Greatest Stock Trader (Wiley Investment) / John Wiley & Sons:
Publication date: 2008-08-08
Dewey code: 940
RRP: £18.99
Price: £15.14
Review Barney Barnfather: Life on a Spitfire Squadron / The History Press:
Publication date: 2007-11-01
RRP: £11.99
Price: £3.93
Review Margaret Thatcher: v. 1 / Vintage:Love her or hate her, there is no escaping the impact that Margaret Thatcher has made upon post-war British Politics. The 1980s are indelibly marked as the Thatcher years, and her rise from Grantham grocer's daughter to Finchley MP in 1959, Leader of the Conservative Party by 1975, and Prime Minister by 1979 was as tenacious as it was controversial. Since being ousted from power, biographers have been busy reassessing her legacy. By far the most distinguished account to date is John Campbell's Margaret Thatcher. Volume One: The Grocer's Daughter. Campbell's credentials for the job are impeccable, having already written the acclaimed biography of Thatcher's great rival, Edward Heath, winner of the 1994 NCR Book Award. As he explains from the outset, this is not an authorised biography, but Thatcher's office made no attempt to prevent the reconstruction of Thatcher's life from her birth in Grantham to her entry into Downing Street. This is a blessing, as Campbell's immensely readable and even-handed book challenges the idealised myth of Thatcher's early life and indoctrination into the "Victorian values" of her Methodist father Alderman Roberts. According to Campbell, Thatcher reinvented herself as a wealthy Home Counties lady, through her difficult years at Oxford, marriage to Denis, and sexist responses from her party throughout her early years in Opposition. However, as her status as a "conviction politician" grew, and with the General Election of 1979 looming, she radically changed her image: "In place of the Home Counties Tory lady in a stripy hat, married to a rich husband, whose children had attended the most expensive private schools, she forced the media to redefine her as a battling meritocrat who had raised herself by hard work from a humble provincial background. [+]" Campbell's story is always compelling, his research meticulous, and his sweep of the political skulduggery of the 60s and 70s masterful. Margaret Thatcher is an absorbing story of the creation of a modern political myth. -Jerry Brotton.
Publication date: 2008-06-12
RRP: £18.99
Price: £8.20
Review My Father's Roses: One Family, Two Wars, Three Generations Divided by Fate and Bound Through Love / Hodder & Stoughton General:
Publication date: 2003-12-04
Dewey code: 944
RRP: £12.99
Price: £9.99
Review Napoleon: Conquest, Reform and Reorganisation (Seminar Studies In History) / Longman:
Authors
- Yasmina Reza
- Pierre Guglielmina
Publication date: 2008-05-13
Dewey code: 944.084092
RRP: £15.50
Price: £7.91
Review Dawn Dusk or Night: A Year with Nicolas Sarkozy / Potter Style:
Creator: Andrew Hurley
Edition: Revised
Publication date: 2007-10-29
RRP: £25.00
Price: £17.01
Review My Life / Allen Lane:
Publication date: 2006-09-15
Dewey code: 941.085092
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.99
Review Margaret Thatcher (20 British Prime Ministers of the 20th Century) / Haus Publishing Limited:
Publication date: 2008-09-18
Dewey code: 909
RRP: £19.99
Price: £11.06
Review The Life of General George Monck: For King and Cromwell / Pen & Sword Military:
Creator: Adam Hart-Davis
Publication date: 1999-05-20
Dewey code: 363.72840942109034
Price: £19.99
Review The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Metropolis / Sutton Publishing Ltd:Stephen Halliday describes the writing of this book as "a labour of love", but it would take a strong stomach to love some of the material he includes about the 19th- century Thames. Two million people poured their sewage directly into the river, "more filth was continuously adding to it," noted a contemporary, "until the Thames became absolutely pestilential". In the 1850s the river was black, and in the hot summer of 1858 the stink was so unbearable that the Houses of Parliament were driven from the chamber. But a hero emerges from this smelly mess, Sir Joseph Bazalgette, a Victorian engineer of prodigious energy and foresight, who "turned the Thames from the filthiest to the cleanest metropolitan river in the world, which it remains. " Halliday is indeed a little in love with his subject, Bazalgette, but it is easy to see why. The construction of the system of sanitation on which London still relies an enormous undertaking, but Bazalgette saw it through with tenacity and a kind of engineering genius. He saved more lives (by freeing the city from cholera) than any single Victorian public official. This book is a small marvel, elegantly written, generously illustrated and a fascinating insight into the guts of London. -Adam Roberts.
Publication date: 1998-10-08
RRP: £25.00
Price: £20.00
Review The Course of My Life: The Autobiography of Edward Heath / Hodder & Stoughton Ltd:Edward Heath's autobiography is at times oddly impersonal; much of its emotional force has to do with a passion for setting the record straight. The son of a small builder, his Conservatism defined itself early on through his patriotism and passion for self-improvement. His travels in Europe as a young man filled him with a dread of the Nazis and he had, as they say, a good war. Just as his time in charge of firing squads put him off capital punishment, so the war made him a determined European; his premiership failed in many ways, but he did succeed in getting Britain into Europe. His opposition to recent Conservative leaders is less the personal pique sometimes alleged than a determination not to see his legacy destroyed. His resolution not to let the Eurosceptics rewrite history sometimes bogs his story down in repetitive score-settling; given the charge of disloyalty so often made against him, it is legitimate that he establish his credentials. At the book's occasional best, he shows a dry humour and an unexpected sense of his own absurdity; there are some surprising vignettes as well, like Fidel Castro drunkenly ranting about his hero- worship of Winston Churchill, and Enoch Powell promising to break an NHS strike by importing Jamaican nurses. -Roz Kaveney.
Edition: New title
Publication date: 2003-05
Dewey code: 937.05092
Price: £15.95
Review Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician / Random House USA Inc:
Edition: POLS
Publication date: 2008-08-21
Dewey code: 328.73092
RRP: £4.99
Price: £1.31
Review Barack Obama For Beginners: An Essential Guide (For Beginners (Steerforth Press)) / FOR BEGINNERS:
| Browse Political:
Models & Brands:
Palestine Twilight: Archaeology of the Holy Land and the Murder of Dr. Albert Glock, Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill, The Good Soldier, George V's Children, La Audacia de La Esperanza: Reflexiones Sobre Ca3mo Restaurar El Sueao Americano = The Audacity of Hope (Vintage Espanol), The Rise and Fall of Napoleon: Fall v.2: Fall Vol 2, Jesse Livermore: Worlds Greatest Stock Trader (Wiley Investment), Barney Barnfather: Life on a Spitfire Squadron, Margaret Thatcher: v. 1, My Father's Roses: One Family, Two Wars, Three Generations Divided by Fate and Bound Through Love, Napoleon: Conquest, Reform and Reorganisation (Seminar Studies In History), Dawn Dusk or Night: A Year with Nicolas Sarkozy, My Life, Margaret Thatcher (20 British Prime Ministers of the 20th Century), The Life of General George Monck: For King and Cromwell, The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Metropolis, The Course of My Life: The Autobiography of Edward Heath, Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician, Barack Obama For Beginners: An Essential Guide (For Beginners (Steerforth Press)) |
