This revised new edition provides more than 4,500 quotations, covering the people, events, and ideas of some 2,500 years of politics: the inspiring speeches and the disastrous gaffes. Antony Jay has selected the best sayings of and about politicians both past and present, ranging from Karl Marx to George W. Bush and Elizabeth I to Ken Livingstone, and touching on subjects as diverse as warfare, nationalism, honesty, and the ever-sensitive issue of taxation. Newspaper headlines, Slogans, and other special categories are grouped together for easier access, and an extensive index helps you to find out who really said that half-remembered phrase. With the addition of Sound bites of 2000-3, events covered include the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the enlargement of the European Union. Just when we thought it was safe to go back in the water, the sharks are circling again - anonymous British Cabinet Minister on the forthcoming report of the European Convention. States like these...constitute an axis of evil - George W. Bush. I wasn't even in the index - Edwina Currie, on John Major's autobiography. You know what some people call us: the nasty party - Theresa May. A good day to bury bad news - summary of Jo Moore's email of 11 September 2001. You don't look tall if you surround yourself by short grasses - Michael Portillo on Iain Duncan Smith. Entitlement cards will not be compulsory, but everyone will have to have one - John Prescott. There is no list, and Syria isn't on it - Jack Straw.
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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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