`funny, striking, thought-provoking and incisive ...will appeal to those browsing through it as least as much as to those who wish to use it as a work of reference' Observer `Completely captures the comic aspect of politics while still presenting some serious messages ...It is hard to stop browsing once you start' Daily Mail `This reader devoured it from cover to cover, discovering ...some excellent and unfamiliar quotations ...it fills a serious gap.' Financial Times `Marshalled with wit and meticulous attribution of sources' Guardian `full of good one-liners ' Sunday Telegraph This lively and illuminating dictionary presents a vintage crop of over 4,000 quotations reflecting every facet of political life. Examples range from the pivotal and momentous to the rhetorical, the sincere, the bemused, the tongue-in-cheek, and the downright rude, with memorable words from the old hands as well as from contemporary politicians. `Politics is just like showbusiness, you have a hell of an opening, coast for a while and then have a hell of a close.' Ronald Reagan `A big cat detained briefly in a poodle parlour, sharpening her claws on the velvet.' Matthew Parris of Lady Thatcher in the House of Lords This book is intended for journalists; writers; politicians; speech-writers; anyone with an interest in politics from classical and biblical times to the present day.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
According to Dean Acheson, "The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull." But people don't always do what they're supposed to do, as illustrated by the more than 4,000 political quotations compiled by Antony Jay. Trenchant, morbid, ironic, or inane, these bon mots from prominent leaders are everything but dull. The dictionary is arranged alphabetically, running the lexical gamut from British Labour politician Diane Abbott (who opined "Being an MP is the sort of job all working-class parents want for their children--clean, indoors and no heavy lifting") to French novelist Emile Zola, who said simply, "J'accuse." But there is also a subject index that allows you to search for witticisms featuring the words "rotten," "bicker," "subversion," or "handkerchief." In political history, perspective is all. Reading the words of Prince Metternich ("Error has never approached my spirit") and H.L. Mencken ("Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy") is as instructive about the past as it is about the present. It makes for fun browsing, too. --Stephanie Gold
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Originally published in Great Britain and edited by British television writer and producer Jay, this book aims to present "a bank of political quotations which are part of the currency of political speeches and writings throughout the English-speaking world." Thus, the primary qualification for a quote's inclusion "was not its antiquity or profundity, but its familiarity." The coverage favors the British, but there is ample treatment of Americans as well as politicians from other countries?ranging from Roman times to the present and even including popular figures such as Woody Allen and Joan Baez. Drawn from the Oxford database and supplemented with material from correspondence and the media, the 4000-plus quotations are arranged alphabetically by author, with cross references. This is the opposite of the subject arrangements of the two other major collections, Political Quotations (LJ 5/1/94) and the Macmillan Dictionary of Political Quotations (Macmillan, 1993). Macmillan includes twice as many quotations, but Oxford and Political Quotations have keyword indexes, and Oxford is somewhat more up to date. With its unique author arrangement, this is recommended as an affordable addition for medium to large libraries.?Louise Ann Treff, Univ. of Colorado at Denver
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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