- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (4 Sep 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140288473
- ISBN-13: 978-0140288476
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 291,753 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
The Political Animal: An Anatomy
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Why don't we like politicians? In "The Political Animal", Jeremy Paxman takes a look at why governments and politicians so often fail to live up to expectations. It can be an unforgiving business for MPs - caricatured as either power-hungry hypocrites or hopeless idealists - years of effort can lead only to defeat, disgrace or obscurity. What sort of person likes having his or her business or family affairs all over the news, or mistakes trumpeted and triumphs belittled? What drives people to go into it - and what do they get from it all? Jeremy Paxman sets out to explore this strange world - and on the way gives us an unsparing, but essentially sympathetic portrait of modern politicians.
About the Author
Jeremy Paxman is a journalist, best known for his work presenting Newsnight and University Challenge. His books include Friends In High Places and The English. He lives in Oxfordshire.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Where did they all come from, this extraordinary breed? Once upon a time, they must have been normal. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Where did they all come from, this extraordinary breed? Once upon a time, they must have been normal. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Well written and engaging but ultimately not as insightful as you might hope. For anyone interested in politics and the political process Paxman's latest is an entertaining source of anecdotes and a useful introduction to the way democratic politics has developed in Britain. Despite this the book always feels a bit limited and falls down on two fronts. Firstly, the existence of other, better books on this subject (e.g. Gerald Kaufman's "How to be a Minister", Andrew Rawnsley's "Servants of the People"). Secondly (and possibly this is just me) the expectation that a commentator of Paxman's stature might have just a few more new ideas to throw into the melting pot. Ultimately an enjoyable read, just don't expect a great deal more.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Why do we have such high expectations of politicians as a class yet such low expectations of the individuals? We enjoy the small change of political scandal – the revelations of unorthodox private lives or unsavoury business practice, while at the same time tuttutting that politicians are just as stupid, venal and corrupt as any of us. Paxman’s book makes an important contribution to a debate that’s just gaining currency – how can we re-engage people with politics when the so-called Westminster Village – parliament and the media circus that surrounds it – seems so self obsessed and distant from everyday life. His thesis is that this is essential, if civil society is to be maintained, and argues that our double standards do ourselves a disservice – politicians in the UK at least are less corrupt and sleazy than we might think, and certainly less so than in many other European democracies. But his main point is that politicians won’t exactly make this easy – for they’re a decidedly odd lot, an extension I suppose of the old adage that anyone who wants the job probably is unsuited to it by that very desire. In an episodic look at the politician’s life – the early years as a hack, candidacy, and the new MP through to the close of political life whether by election defeat, resignation or retirement – he aims to uncover just what it is that makes them tick. Paxman’s approach will be familiar to Newsnight viewers and here, he’s on home turf – feline, deceptively humorous yet with a menacing undercurrent. If you like his style you’ll find parts of The Political Animal laugh out loud funny, the odd irritating factual error notwithstanding - and not only for his Jeffrey Archer gags.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a rare tome - a book about politics that will entertain and instruct both political junkies and the common reader.
That means, of course, that it's not a work of academic political science. Rather it's a work of inspired journalism by a master feature-writer.
Feature writers commonly weave together three things - facts, quotes and anecdotes - and they hang them on a theme. Usually they provide plenty of facts and quotes but good anecdotes are normally in short supply (or badly written) even though they are the ingredients that build readability.
Jeremy Paxman not only provides plenty of facts and striking quotes in his analysis of British politicians and their wayward habits but also gives us a text fairly bristling with pertinent anecdotes drawn from the politics of the past century or so.
It's important to make this point because the questions he sets out to answer may seem dull to the common reader: "Where do politicians come from? Why do they do it? Why do we seem so disenchanted with them? And why does the experience of politics nearly always end in disillusion?"
With admirable impartiality and in a sparkling prose style, Paxman hangs his diverting collection of facts, quotes and anecdotes on the theme that politicians are generally untrustworthy, power-hungry, hypocritical, naive or disillusioned. Certainly almost all of them end with their ideals or illusions badly battered by the experience of an adversary system which is corrupted by competition, connivance, secrecy and rivalry. Privately few of them ever have a good word to say about a colleague or competitor.
Almost all of them end disillusioned and the most disillusioned of all are those who climb highest. If these high-flyers don't end in defeat or disgrace, they fade (thank goodness!) into obscurity.
Sounds dull, but it ain't. This book is a buzz from beginning to end. Even if you've never read another book on politics - and even if you aren't British - you can read this one with immense enjoyment and learn much as you laugh and curse your way through its sparkling text. This is a rare case in which the word "brilliant" is completely apposite.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Politics & Politicians.
A very informative and witty book - politicians are dispatched in print with the withering sarcasm that we see from Jeremy Paxman on television. Read more
Published 1 month ago by David J.
Fave book
Bought this for my son who loves politics in any shape or form. Must say this is his favourite book of all time and he has read many.
Published 6 months ago by Mrs S
Paxman at Home
Having read most of his books, I looked forward to his volume - no Victorian paintings, royalty, quintessentially English people, fly-fishing - just Paxman at home with... Read more
Published 8 months ago by RR Waller
Punchy, amusing, insightful anatomy of the politician
'The Political Animal' is Jeremy Paxman's attempt to anatomise the politician: that peculiar creature who devotes him- or herself to the pursuit of personal power by way of... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Paul Bowes
A real eye opener
We all know that Jeremy Paxman is disdainful of politicians, or at the very least, sceptical. In his book, The Political Animal, he tells us why. Read more
Published 18 months ago by A. J. Wentworth
Entertaining and informative
This is an entertaining look at not just the political individual but also the greater British political machine. Read more
Published 19 months ago by HGT
Most Intelligently Observed
I once wanted to be a politician (we're talking 25 years ago now). A good friend, who knew both politics and me, said I had no chance: "you're not the type", he told me,... Read more
Published on 10 April 2010 by Andy
Predictable, but then you would have guessed that
I cannot imagine that anyone will go into this book believing many politicians, if indeed any, are normal in the public's sense of the word and there is nothing here to confound... Read more
Published on 11 July 2009 by Stephen B. Peddie
I was so bored...
I like to think I've got a good understanding of politics and when I ordered this I wasn't expecting an exciting book but this really is one of the most boring books I've ever... Read more
Published on 19 May 2009 by The Reviewer
Why do we let them run the country?
The Political Animal by Jeremy Paxman is a very good book examing politics and politicians. It is well written and very interesting but if you don't like Paxman as an interviewer... Read more
Published on 29 Oct 2008 by HBH
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