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Political Advice

Past, Present and Future

Colin Kidd editor Jacqueline Rose editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Published:25th Feb '21

Should be back in stock very soon

Political Advice cover

This book brings several very different voices to bear on the problem of political advice and influence.

Political advice has never seemed more prominent – or more problematic. This volume of essays speaks to a contemporary concern, set in a wider historical context. Political Advice: Past, Present and Future brings several very different voices to bear on the problem of advice and influence, the distinction in so far as it is valid between political and policy advice, the two-way parasitism of adviser and advised, the nature and idioms of political advice literature, the ever-pressing issue of access and exclusion, and the curious history of advisers’ success and failure. With contributions from classics and literature as well as from history and politics, this volume treats political advice in an interdisciplinary fashion. Moreover, a unique practitioners’ perspective on the problem of political advice is provided by the contributions of politicians, political advisers and former senior civil servants.

Excellently quirky. * London Review of Books *
Appreciated and despised in equal measure, political advisers have been at the heart of government decision-making for many centuries. This valuable collection of essays digs deep into the history and more recent practice of political advice to expose why these advisers, while sometimes controversial, have been so valued by generation after generation of our political leaders. * Ed Balls, former Shadow Chancellor, Cabinet Adviser and Chief Economic Adviser to the Treasury *
This richly compelling volume traces the mostly hidden history of political advice from Greek democracy to present-day spadocracy. I would advise any modern Machiavelli or rising Rasputin, as well as every politician and political historian, to heed its timely counsel. * David Armitage, Harvard University, co-author of The History Manifesto *

ISBN: 9781838601201

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 374g

240 pages