Review
A very intelligent, subtle, and learned guide to the classics and to the pre-eminent historical examples of hypocrisy from Mandeville and Hobbes, to Jefferson and the Victorians, with some concluding examples to illustrate the special problems of hypocrisy and sincerity in democracies. -- David Martin, Times Literary Supplement
[
Political Hypocrisy] contains a plethora of shrewd and quotable remarks. . . . What struck a chord with me was his gentle demolition of the idea that a politician's profession of his own sincerity, or passionate belief, proves anything at all. -- Samuel Brittan, Financial Times
University of Cambridge political theorist David Runciman takes a far more textured, sophisticated approach to the phenomenon in
Political Hypocrisy, a timely, long overdue study of one of public life's in-your-face puzzles. -- Carlin Romano, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Political Hypocrisy is not just another denunciation of politicians as liars. Instead, it offers us a tour, from Hobbes and Mandeville to Bentham and Orwell. Runciman is best on the American revolutionaries and our eminent Victorians, perhaps because both the US war of independence and the British empire required self-aware democratic politicians to gloss over the gaps between their proclaimed beliefs and their actual behaviour. -- David Willetts, Prospect Magazine
Political Hypocrisy is a deep and thought-provoking work. -- Tim Dunne, THE
In the excellent
Political Hypocrisy, British journalist David Runciman uses the 2008 campaign to test his thesis that hypocrisy and anti-hypocrisy are joined in a 'discrete system' and that our obsession with this antagonistic tango is making modern politics impossible. -- Richard King, The Australian Literary Review
From the Inside Flap
"David Runciman's great achievement is to take the notion of hypocrisy, well-known as a term of moral disapprobation, and to relocate it as a central concept in the history of rational liberal discourse. This illuminating, wide-ranging, and subtle study presents the exposing of hypocrisy, and its simultaneous retention, as an uncomfortable and largely deliberate feature of the writings of some major political theorists and disputants from Hobbes to the present, and argues persuasively and with characteristic elegance that hypocritical deception is necessarily embedded in political life and language."--Michael Freeden, University of Oxford
"David Runciman is a master navigator through the psychology of democracy."--Simon Jenkins, author and journalist
"A fascinating, stimulating read. It treats an issue of immediate political interest in a subtle and engaging way, finding in the history of political liberalism a wealth of insights relevant to contemporary politics. Anyone discussing political hypocrisy in the future will have to deal with this book."--Bryan Garsten, Yale University
"David Runciman's Political Hypocrisy is a superb, beautifully written book on a crucial topic, unmatched in the field and likely to shape it for a long time to come. I was consistently surprised and enlightened by its arguments."--Andrew Sabl, University of California, Los Angeles
