Bernard Crick
'George Orwell: A Life'

'A triumph of the first order'
- Michael Foot in the London Evening Standard

More than a decade after it's first publication, Bernard Crick's masterly study of one of Britain's greatest 'politic writers' remains the most objective account of Orwell's strange life. Now reissued with a substantial new Afterword, it includes both Crick's trenchant criticism of other approaches to Orwell and important new material.

'It is hardly worth using up the space to declare just how good it is. Different readers will come away from seventeen pungent and packed chapters with diverse memories of its excellence' - Peter Sedgwick in the Guardian.

'Crick has a remarkable independent mind and a large irascible way of seeing things' - Noel Annan in the New York Review of Books.

'Crick's analytical mind, combined with his mastery of the historical background and context, make him the ideal guide' - Arthur Koestler in the Observer.

'Assured and eloquent... In its own uncompromised integrity it is both monumental and appeealing' - Los Angeles Times.

First published over thirty years ago, this masterly investigation into the meaning and benefits of politics is firmly established as a classic.

Bernard Crick affirms that the negotiating processes of politics remain the only tested alternative to government by coercion and defends politics both from those who would reduce it (say, to ideology or nationalism) and from its false friends. This newly revised and up-dated edition includes a lament for the lost opportunities following the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe and a meditation on such bitter conflicts where normal political compromise seems to fail as, for example, in Northern Ireland, South Africa and Israel/Palestine. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the widespread fear of anarchy and disorder, the hard-headed arguments contained in this book in favour of political solutions have never been more timely.

'One of the most thoughtful products of the political dialogues of the London School of Economics since the great days ofTawney, Dalton, Wallas and Hobhouse. Its sobriety, liberal spirit and toughness of mind are rare qualities in any political work' - Edward Shils in the Guardian.

'He has written an exceedingly clever and disturbing book on import-ant issues, all that he writes is alive and much of what he says, even when it seems perversely provocative, turns out to be penetrating and serious... written with verve and brilliance' - Isaiah Berlin in 20th Century.