The Conservative Party’s summer reading list Charlie Edwards
August 3, 2008 | More on UK | 7 comments
I can’t be the only one scratching my head at the Conservative Party’s summer holiday reading list. It’s week 2 of silly season, I grant you, and journalists will take pretty much anything on offer, but this just smacks of column filling (that said perhaps some of the larger tomes will act as wind breakers and/or sun shades on the beach).
According to the Sunday Times the reading list was chosen by Keith Simpson, a shadow foreign affairs spokesman and a former lecturer at Cranfield and Sandhurst. This is clearly reflected in his choice of reading material as 24 of the 38 books are on military history, geography, and terrorism. Nudge, the book currently feted by all three political parties looks like a definite afterthought.
What I find so puzzling is the choice of books on offer. I really can’t believe Cameron will be leafing through Empires of the Sea or Five Days in London on his hols.
There are no decent books on China (the more recent by Will Hutton, Charles Grant and Mark Leonard). What about Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody; Diplomacy by Henry Kissenger, or Thomas Rick’s Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005? The list of good books is endless – this list is meaningless.
MPs have approximately 11 weeks off, so here’s how they might spend their summer holiday (according to Keith Simpson):
Week 1: Fragile States & Human Rights
Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World, Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Power
Week 2: Terrorism
Terror and Consent: The War for the Twenty-First Century, Philip Bobbitt
Week 3: Middle East
Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq, Patrick Cockburn
A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East, Laurence Freedman
Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of Islam’s City of Tolerance, Giles Milton
1948: The First Arab Israeli War, Benny Morris
Week 4: History
Empires of the Sea: The Final Battle for the Mediterranean 1521-1580, Roger Crowley
Munich: The 1938 Appeasement Crisis, David Faber
The Pain and the Privilege: The Women in Lloyd George’s Life, Ffion Hague
Five Days in London, John Lukas
Hitler’s Empire: Nazi Life in Occupied Europe, Mark Mazower
Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, E Neudstadt and Ernest R May
Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West, Andrew Roberts
Mr Lincoln’s T-Mails: The Untold Story of How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War, Tom Wheeler
Week 5: Geography & Diplomacy
Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan will Shape our Next Decade, Bill Emmott
Dinner with Mugabe: The Untold Story, Heidi Holland
Inside the Private Office: Memoirs of the Secretary to British Foreign Ministers, Nicholas Henderson Britain in Africa, Tom Porteous
The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Robert Kagan
A Stranger in Europe: Britain and the EU from Thatcher to Blair, Stephen Wall
The Post-American World, Fareed Zakaria
Good Manners and Bad Behaviour: The Unofficial Rules of Diplomacy, Candida Slater
Week 6: Afghanistan and Central Asia
A Million Bullets: The Real Diary of the British Army in Afghanistan, James Fergusson
Descent into Chaos: How the War against Islamic Extremism is being Lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, Ahmed Rashid
Week 7: CSR
Good Business: Your World Needs You, Steve Hilton and Giles Gibbons
Week 8: Politics
Politicians and Public Services: Implementing Change in a Clash of Cultures, Kate Jenkins
Vote for Caesar: How the Ancient Greeks and Romans Solved the Problems of Today, Peter Jones
Political Hypocrisy: The Mask of Power from Hobbes to Orwell and Beyond, David Runciman
Decline to Fall: The Making of British Macro-Economic Policy and the 1976 IMF Crisis, Douglas Wass
Week 9: Labour in power
Tony’s Ten Years: Memories of the Blair Administration, Adam Boulton
Week 10: Cameron and the Conservative Party
Boris v Ken: How Boris Johnson Won London, Giles Edwards and Jonathan Isaby
The Rise of Boris Johnson, Andrew Gimson
A Political Suicide: The Conservatives’ Voyage into the Wilderness, Norman Fowler
Cameron on Cameron, Dylan Jones
Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes, Ferdinand Mount
Week 11: The politics of public behaviour
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini
Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness, Richard H Thaler and Cass R Sunstein
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I beg to differ: there is actually quite a lot of good stuff on this list. It certainly contains rather too much fire-and-forget military tomes (but I guess that’s all a large section of the party will ever read)and political chaff (“Cameron on Cameron”?).
But on Iraq, Patrick Cockburn is excellent, and his book is more up-to-date that Ricks. Freedman is also a sound choice. Daniel and I would argue that the inclusion of Ghani and Lockhart on state-building is a good call.
As far as “state of the world” tracts go, I think Kagan, Bobbitt and Zakaria are the obvious choices – and interestingly imply that the Tories are ready to imagine a post-US world. Charlie is right that there isn’t enough on China, but Emmot’s “The Rivals” is a straightforward primer for those who want to think in terms of an “Asia policy” embracing India and Japan too.
The most interesting choice of all is David Runciman’s new book on political hypocrisy: a serious bit of political thought by an author who does nuance and complex argument. There’s also a strong link between Runciman and Cass Sunstein, co-author of “Nudge” – Sunstein frequently pops up praising Runciman’s work.
It’s not such a bad list after all.
Hello,
I quite agree with you! If you liked Clay Shirky’s book, I wanted to tell you about a website http://www.morethansound.net where there is a dialogue between him and Daniel Goleman available called “Socially Intelligent Computing.” It is quite good and available on DVD or digital download.
Richard, I think it’s fair to say you have identified the nine or so books that are good – but that leaves 29 books left… my point being that it would have been better to get rid of most of them and instead have Shirky’s book etc etc
I think that there are still more out-and-out goodies on the list: Power, Morris, Mazower, Neustadt/May, Henderson, Wall, Rashid and Fowler. Wass sounds serious, Milton and Mount can both be fun…
Now, I agree that it is odd that the list emphasizes fun over, well, nearly all domestic policy and technology issues. Shirky should be there, although the omission that strikes me as most curious is Richard Sennett’s recent “The Craftsman”, which has a lot to say about Cameronian priorities like individual self-worth, etc.
And, if one assumes that a certain quantity of entertainment s acceptable, why no novels? These guys need some trash. Thatcher (it is said) approved the building of the new British Library because she was told that Michael Innes thrillers were rotting in the previous space. Personally, I would vastly prefer my future leaders to be wolfing down Henning Mankell and Tom Clancy than the too-public-school-for-public-school histories of Andrew Roberts.
And one more thing: was there a secret codicile recommending “audacity of Hope”?
Hm, interesting discussion here for sure.
Josh Xiong has pretty good discussion of Kagan and China here:
http://joshxiong.com/?p=53
See the attached URL for what the Greeks did (and their faith continues to do) in 1919 to bring about 1922.
I think you will find that our MP’s will have to employ the services of a firm of consultants to determine what they should read, then put this out to a consultation (public excluded) and then have a judicial review. At least they will be in paperback bu then, albeit they won’t be able to get them from John Lewis.