THE POINT OF DEPARTURE

Cook, Robin

ISBN 10: 0743252551 / ISBN 13: 9780743252553

Editore: Simon & Schuster, London, 2003

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368pp.

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Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: THE POINT OF DEPARTURE
• Editore: Simon & Schuster, London
• Data di pubblicazione: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0743252551
• ISBN 13: 9780743252553
• Rilegatura: Hb
• Condizione: Very Good
• Condizione della sovraccoperta: Very Good
• Cataloghi dei venditori:
  • Labour Party - About/Biographies

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

As the Iraqi conflict led to his resignation from the Cabinet, Robin Cook, former Foreign Secretary, will naturally focus on the build-up to and the consequences of the war. He will also explore how the excitement at Blair's victory in l997 - and the very real advances in his first parliament - have given way to a decline in public confidence, deepening challenges to parliamentary democracy and an increasing loss of momentum in his second parliament. Based on first-hand experiences of the Cabinet and Commons since the last election, Cook will explain how decisions came to be taken and explore the consequences of those decisions. The struggle for greater democracy, the increased conservatism of the present government and the march to war provides a dramatic and compelling story.

Recensione

This book is great fun to read. It has the authentic touch of both the great and the trivial issues that dominate the daily life and the grind of ministers in any government" Guardian
'Robin Cook's Point of Departure provides the best insight yet into the workings of the Blair cabinet. His diary entries are highly readable, and sometimes very funny' Elinor Goodman, Books of the Year, Sunday Telegraph 30/11
'Cook does not accuse Blair of deliberate deception. Cook's restraint makes an even more damning case. He guides the reader towards a devastating guilty verdict on the Prime Minister without making too many sweeping judgments himself. While narrating a tragic and humiliating failure in foreign policy, Cook also manages to be very funny' Independent on Sunday, Political Books of the Year 14/12
'Instant history can tell us how events appeared before they became obscured in the fog of hindsight. For hindsight is the great enemy of the historian. We forget, all too easily, that what is now in the past once lay in the future. Instant history, especially when, as with Robin Cook's Point of Departure, it is based on the diary of a participant, is history written when the outcome was still unknown' FT, UK Politics
'The best-written and most thoroughly researched of the post-election batch of cabinet biographies,' Peter Kellner, Evening Standard.
'This thoroughly researched and well-crafted biography has both revelations and insights to offer about the life of one of the most intriguing members of this government,' Andrew Rawnsley, Observer
'An admirable instant biography, taking in all its subject's trials and tribulations since he came to office,' Anthony Howard's political books of the year, 1998, Sunday Times
"Devastating on how Blair found himself taking Britain to war in the shadow of President Bush, after 'grossly distorting', in Cook's phrase, the threat of Saddam's weapon's to the world"
Sunday Times 29/8