The Oxford Book of Political Anecdotes (Oxford paperbacks)

by PaulJohnson (Editor)

• Used

  Paperback
  1989

  $3.25

  From the time King Canute demonstrated to his courtiers the limits of his power as he failed to repulse the waves, anecdotes have proved a valuable source of historical truth. Details may be altered or distorted, but more often than not anecdotes prove accurate. Paul Johnson has collected over 300 anecdotes, and guides the reader from Richard III's murder of the Princes in the Tower to a scene between Jim Callaghan and Barbara Castle. British statesmen and politicians are recorded by their contemporaries in journals, letters, parliamentary records and biographies. The stories range from rows in the Houses of Parliament and dinner and garden parties, to the visit of a lecherous former American president and Churchill making a graceful recovery after he has pushed an older boy - a future colleague - into the swimming pool at Harrow.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1986

  $3.25

  Renowned journalist and bestselling author Paul Johnson here presents some 300 anecdotes and guides the reader along with succinct and informative commentaries from Richard III's murder of the princes in the Tower of London to a final frosty scene between Jim Callaghan and Barbara Castle. The brilliance and flaws of statesmen and politicians--Sir Thomas More, Cromwell, Sir Robert Walpole, Gladstone, Disraeli, F.E. Smith, Churchill, Attlee, Crosland, and Crossman among them--are recorded by their contemporaries, in journals and letters, in parliamentary records, and by later biographies. Funerals, battles in Parliament, an interview with a journalist turned forger, dinner and garden parties, the visit of a lecherous former American president, Attlee's reaction to being overtaken by a dangerous driver who proves to be his wife, Churchill making a graceful recovery after he had pushed an older boy-a future colleague--into the swimming pool at Harrow: the stories range from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the witty to the sobering, from the gratifying to the positively alarming. As Johnson convincingly demonstrates in his introduction, anecdotes have proved a valuable source of historical truth. Details may be altered or distorted (an occasionally lost in the romance of invention) but more often than not, in essentials they prove accurate and telling. And it is the stories--strange, eccentric, personal--that we remember long after the dates of Bills and Battles and Monarchs have gone out of our heads.