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11 oeuvres 108 utilisateurs 2 critiques

A propos de l'auteur

Dick Leonard is a journalist, author and former Labour MP. He was Assistant Editor of The Economist for 12 years, and has also worked for The Observer, the BBC, the Fabian Society, the Centre for European Policy Studies and the Publishers Association.

Comprend les noms: Dick Leornard

Œuvres de Dick Leonard

Étiqueté

Partage des connaissances

Nom canonique
Leonard, Dick
Nom légal
Leonard, Richard Lawrence
Date de naissance
1930-12-12
Date de décès
2021-06-24
Sexe
male
Professions
MP
journalist

Membres

Critiques

This book may be useful for anyone seeking to springle an essay with quotes from notables. However, it contains little to no meaningful analysis, just bland platitudes from committed Europeans waffling about integration and a united future together etc.

It is very much a reader rather than a book and it's also quite out of date now (2008), written in ~ 2002. Look elsewhere if you are looking for a presentation of the case 'for' Europe.
½
 
Signalé
cwhouston | Nov 21, 2010 |
This book provides a good overview of the PMs during the 20th century. However, I would have much preferred the author to concentrate the ~20 or so pages allotted to each on the politics and policies pursued while in office. Instead, each chapter also attempts to serve as a mini biography and in many cases presents what I considered to be irrelevant or uninteresting information about childhood experiences or relatives. This also has the effect of reducing the amount coverage given to the information that I wanted. These observations may be partially attributed to the structure of the book, in which the author has decided to arbitrarily assign a standardised chapter size to each PM, irrespective of duration of tenure or political impact. This leads to the slightly odd situation of political non-entities, e.g. Alec Douglas-Home or Balfour, being devoted similar coverage to titans like Churchill or Lloyd George. This I found unsatisfactory.

Other observations that I would make include: a complete lack of primary research by the author (he has relied upon biographies), a rather annoying pro-EU sentiment that is evident throughout the book and an admirable, particularly given his status as a labour MP, sense of political objectivity when discussing the achievements of PMs from both sides of the house.

This is a useful, single-volume summary of the history of our recent leaders that is good, if not great.
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
cwhouston | Nov 21, 2010 |

Statistiques

Œuvres
11
Membres
108
Popularité
#179,297
Évaluation
3.2
Critiques
2
ISBN
39

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