The story of Britain-and the world-in the first half of the twentieth century, as seen from the perspective of the world's most famous debating society. A vivid, sometimes piquant, picture of a Britain that is now passing from living memory-and a powerful reminder of the ways in which the past really is a foreign country.
A personal and political biography, it is the product of intensive research by way of interviews with many people from cabinet ministers to the boy he played football with in the street, as well as his family and John Major himself.
Kniha pojednává o odkazu Machiavelliho učení v současné politice, kdy se soustředí na pragmatismus a morálku v činech světových vládců a politiků. Zaměřuje se na jednání státníků jakými byli: De Gaulle, Thatcherová, Kennedy, Bush, Wilson, ale i Mussolini, Franco, Hitler a Stalin