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Where Power Stops: The Making and Unmaking of Presidents and Prime Ministers

Description:

Lyndon Baines Johnson, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, Theresa May, and Donald Trump: each had different motivations, methods, and paths, but they all sought the highest office. And yet when they reached their goal, they often found that the power they had imagined was illusory. Their sweeping visions of reform faltered. They faced bureaucratic obstructions, but often the biggest obstruction was their own character.

However, their personalities could help them as much as hurt them. Arguably the most successful of them, LBJ showed little indication that he supported what he is best known for - the Civil Rights Act - but his grit, resolve, and brute political skill saw him bend Congress to his will.

David Runciman tackles the limitations of high office and how the personal histories of those who achieved the very pinnacles of power helped to define their successes and failures in office. These portraits show what characters are most effective in these offices. Could this be a blueprint for good and effective leadership in an age lacking good leaders?

Read more

Review

Praise for How Democracy Ends:
'Presented in pellucid prose free of the jargon of academic political science, How Democracy Ends is a strikingly readable and richly learned contribution to understanding the world today ... surely one of the most luminously intelligent books on politics to have been published for many years.'

-- John Gray ― New Statesman

Bracingly intelligent...a wonderful read -- Mark Mazower ― Guardian

Full of intriguing new lines of thought -- Gideon Rachman ― FT

Refreshingly, rather than a knicker-twisting diatribe about Trump and Brexit, Runciman offers a thoughtful analysis about what popular democracy means, and its alternatives. -- Katrina Gulliver ― Spectator

Clear-headed, compact and timely ― Irish Times

An excellent book: it is well-written, evenly paced, accessible, non-academic in tone but very much so in rigour and thoughtfulness. It is sceptical but not pessimistic, and warnful but not alarmist ... It is heartily recommended for anyone who seeks to understand our current malaise and interested in this question of how democracy got to where it is today, and where it may go - if anywhere - next. ― LSE Review of Books

Refreshingly free of received and rehearsed wisdoms, Runciman doesn't tiptoe around sacred cows and invites us to take part in that most adult way of thinking: to examine contradictory ideas in tandem and ponder what the dissonance amounts to. . . . [H]e argues lucidly, persuasively, even exhilaratingly at times. The nightly news will never appear exactly the same again ― Australian

Praise for The Confidence Trap: Runciman's book abounds with fresh insights, arresting paradoxes, and new ways of posing old problems -- Andrew Gamble ― Times Literary Supplement

This rich and refreshing book will be of intense interest to anyone puzzled by the near paralysis that seems to afflict democratic government in a number of countries -- John Gray ― New York Review of Books

As a corrective to the doom-and-gloomsters, this book makes some telling points, and he is a clear and forceful writer -- Mark Mazower ― Financial Times

Runciman is a good writer and brave pioneer. . . . The picture he sketches is agreeably bold ― Sydney Morning Herald

[An] ingenious account . . . Runciman concludes that democracy will probably survive, having made a delightfully stimulating, if counterintuitive case, that the unnerving tendency of democracies to stumble into crises is matched by their knack for getting out of them ― Publisher's Weekly

What we get here is good history. The events at the seven junctures are presented in a way that is learned, concise and informative -- Stein Ringen ― International Affairs

Those who cannot remember history, George Santayana observed, are condemned to repeat it. Except he's wrong, according to David Runciman. In his admirable analysis, How Democracy Ends, he says the trouble is that we remember the least helpful bits of history, perpetually harking back to the 1930s to explain the aspects of modern politics we like least: Trump especially. Really we'd be better off comparing and contrasting ourselves with ancient Athens, the world's purest democracy. ― Evening Standard

well-written -- Bryan Maye ― Irish Times

Book Description

David Runciman grapples with how character defines and limits the holders of the highest offices in the UK and America

Reviews:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful multi layered reading

s.s. · 5 November 2019

David Runciman has carved his place as the most insightful reviewer of political biography. Runciman's review of David Cameron's memoir in LRB is one of the reads of the year and with this book his credentials are brilliantly exercised. We get paragraphs of biography with insightful one liners that summarise the theme of this book: that politics are fraught with dilemmas despite many leaders attempts to reduce these to individual problems which can be solved by a will. The effectiveness of the writing is that while reading you transport yourself into the situations that Clinton, Blair and even Thatcher faced and ask the question of yourself; what would my response have been and what would it reveal about my underlying personality. There's a lot going on in this book not just in the events and individual leaders discussed but in the way we read people, how they view themselves and how circumstances reveal. Walking past Downing with the audiobook playing I felt myself almost transported inside and then beyond the walls to within the minds of some of the occupants from the recent past.

4.0 out of 5 stars A critique of political memoir

R. · 15 April 2022

This is a good, interesting and engaging book, but it doesn't fully deliver on what is promised.I read this book having enjoyed Runciman's podcast Talking Politics for some time, and the ability he demonstrates in the podcast to step back, get away from the immediacy of partisan politics, and assess matters with a longer term perspective are evident throughout Where Power Stops.Runciman starts with Lyndon B Johnson and works his way through most (not all) of the American Presidents and British Prime Ministers since. Setting up the essays to follow, Runciman states his intention to assess how politicians deal with the limits of their power. In particular, he talks about the manifest sense of destiny that Heads of Government bring with them and how that rubs up against the checks, balances, and frustrations of actual government.The chapters on Lyndon Johnson and Tony Blair, in many ways, are the most interesting. Runciman's assessment of the failures in Blair's personality that limited his achievements, particularly his tentativeness with Gordon Brown, are interesting (if, at times, assertive). Likewise his scepticism about the effectiveness of Blair's delivery units.The issue with the book is that the assessment of power's limits (where power stops) never really happens. In practice, this book is primarily a critique of political memoir, its conventions and its dishonesty. Runciman expends a great deal of energy analysing Presidential and Prime Ministerial memoirs, discounting the specifics of anecdotes and railing against the defensiveness of authors. What he doesn't do particularly is assess what they achieved in office. The result is that the book feels at times rather cynical. No Prime Minister or President gets a particularly positive review. Gordon Brown is afforded a few positive words, but for the most part this book considers every one of its subjects to be deluded, ineffective, and failed.

5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing analysis of political power

E.P. · 1 September 2019

This was an excellent late summer read. Got through in a day and very difficult to skip any words (author has a way with them) -yet alone paragraphs. OK, it was mostly a study on what others have written on some of our recent leaders, but it was an insightful analysis of such. Parts made me laugh and some to shed a tear. The title is apt indeed - the search for ultimate political power is a primitive driving force that some (possibly all politicians) have, but when achieved the exercising is invariably a challenge. But brilliant and surprising revelations. Eagerly await those of no 10's present incumbent !

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating

A.C. · 26 June 2020

Good book. Clear and well written. VG as a gift for students

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing

G.S. · 16 November 2020

This could have been an interesting book. It isn’t and the main reasons are because 1) it is very superficial in its portraits; and 2) the author’s prejudice/views are obvious on almost every page. Don’t bother.

2.0 out of 5 stars Superficial

R.D. · 15 November 2019

I was expecting a detailed account of how leaders were frustrated by the organisations they were supposed to run. Instead it was a rehash of a lot of journalistic memes.

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Where Power Stops: The Making and Unmaking of Presidents and Prime Ministers

Product ID: K1788163346
Condition: New

4.2

AED6243

Price includes VAT & Import Duties
Type: Paperback
Availability: In Stock

Quantity:

|

Order today to get by 7-14 business days

Delivery fee of AED 20. Free for orders above AED 200.

Returns & Warranty policies

Imported From: United Kingdom

At BOLO, we work hard to ensure the products you receive are new, genuine, and sourced from reputable suppliers.

BOLO is not an authorized or official retailer for most brands, nor are we affiliated with manufacturers unless specifically stated on a product page. Instead, we source verified sellers, authorized distributors or directly from the manufacturer.

Each product undergoes thorough inspection and verification at our consolidation and fulfilment centers to ensure it meets our strict authenticity and quality standards before being shipped and delivered to you.

If you ever have concerns regarding the authenticity of a product purchased from us, please contact Bolo Support. We will review your inquiry promptly and, if necessary, provide documentation verifying authenticity or offer a suitable resolution.

Your trust is our top priority, and we are committed to maintaining transparency and integrity in every transaction.

All product information, images, descriptions, and reviews originate from the manufacturer or from trusted sellers overseas. BOLO is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or an authorized retailer for most brands listed on our website unless stated otherwise.

While we strive to display accurate information, variations in packaging, labeling, instructions, or formulation may occasionally occur due to regional differences or supplier updates. For detailed or manufacturer-specific information, please contact the brand directly or reach out to BOLO Support for assistance.

Unless otherwise stated, all prices displayed on the product page include applicable taxes and import duties.

BOLO operates in accordance with the laws and regulations of United Arab Emirates. Any items found to be restricted or prohibited for sale within the UAE will be cancelled prior to shipment. We take proactive measures to ensure that only products permitted for sale in United Arab Emirates are listed on our website.

All items are shipped by air, and any products classified as “Dangerous Goods (DG)” under IATA regulations will be removed from the order and cancelled.

All orders are processed manually, and we make every effort to process them promptly once confirmed. Products cancelled due to the above reasons will be permanently removed from listings across the website.

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Visit the Profile Books Store

Where Power Stops: The Making and Unmaking of Presidents and Prime Ministers

Product ID: K1788163346
Condition: New

4.2

Where Power Stops: The Making and Unmaking of Presidents and Prime Ministers-0
Type: Paperback

AED6243

Price includes VAT & Import Duties
Availability: In Stock

Quantity:

|

Order today to get by 7-14 business days

Delivery fee of AED 20. Free for orders above AED 200.

Returns & Warranty policies

Imported From: United Kingdom

At BOLO, we work hard to ensure the products you receive are new, genuine, and sourced from reputable suppliers.

BOLO is not an authorized or official retailer for most brands, nor are we affiliated with manufacturers unless specifically stated on a product page. Instead, we source verified sellers, authorized distributors or directly from the manufacturer.

Each product undergoes thorough inspection and verification at our consolidation and fulfilment centers to ensure it meets our strict authenticity and quality standards before being shipped and delivered to you.

If you ever have concerns regarding the authenticity of a product purchased from us, please contact Bolo Support. We will review your inquiry promptly and, if necessary, provide documentation verifying authenticity or offer a suitable resolution.

Your trust is our top priority, and we are committed to maintaining transparency and integrity in every transaction.

All product information, images, descriptions, and reviews originate from the manufacturer or from trusted sellers overseas. BOLO is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or an authorized retailer for most brands listed on our website unless stated otherwise.

While we strive to display accurate information, variations in packaging, labeling, instructions, or formulation may occasionally occur due to regional differences or supplier updates. For detailed or manufacturer-specific information, please contact the brand directly or reach out to BOLO Support for assistance.

Unless otherwise stated, all prices displayed on the product page include applicable taxes and import duties.

BOLO operates in accordance with the laws and regulations of United Arab Emirates. Any items found to be restricted or prohibited for sale within the UAE will be cancelled prior to shipment. We take proactive measures to ensure that only products permitted for sale in United Arab Emirates are listed on our website.

All items are shipped by air, and any products classified as “Dangerous Goods (DG)” under IATA regulations will be removed from the order and cancelled.

All orders are processed manually, and we make every effort to process them promptly once confirmed. Products cancelled due to the above reasons will be permanently removed from listings across the website.

Description:

Lyndon Baines Johnson, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, Theresa May, and Donald Trump: each had different motivations, methods, and paths, but they all sought the highest office. And yet when they reached their goal, they often found that the power they had imagined was illusory. Their sweeping visions of reform faltered. They faced bureaucratic obstructions, but often the biggest obstruction was their own character.

However, their personalities could help them as much as hurt them. Arguably the most successful of them, LBJ showed little indication that he supported what he is best known for - the Civil Rights Act - but his grit, resolve, and brute political skill saw him bend Congress to his will.

David Runciman tackles the limitations of high office and how the personal histories of those who achieved the very pinnacles of power helped to define their successes and failures in office. These portraits show what characters are most effective in these offices. Could this be a blueprint for good and effective leadership in an age lacking good leaders?

Read more

Review

Praise for How Democracy Ends:
'Presented in pellucid prose free of the jargon of academic political science, How Democracy Ends is a strikingly readable and richly learned contribution to understanding the world today ... surely one of the most luminously intelligent books on politics to have been published for many years.'

-- John Gray ― New Statesman

Bracingly intelligent...a wonderful read -- Mark Mazower ― Guardian

Full of intriguing new lines of thought -- Gideon Rachman ― FT

Refreshingly, rather than a knicker-twisting diatribe about Trump and Brexit, Runciman offers a thoughtful analysis about what popular democracy means, and its alternatives. -- Katrina Gulliver ― Spectator

Clear-headed, compact and timely ― Irish Times

An excellent book: it is well-written, evenly paced, accessible, non-academic in tone but very much so in rigour and thoughtfulness. It is sceptical but not pessimistic, and warnful but not alarmist ... It is heartily recommended for anyone who seeks to understand our current malaise and interested in this question of how democracy got to where it is today, and where it may go - if anywhere - next. ― LSE Review of Books

Refreshingly free of received and rehearsed wisdoms, Runciman doesn't tiptoe around sacred cows and invites us to take part in that most adult way of thinking: to examine contradictory ideas in tandem and ponder what the dissonance amounts to. . . . [H]e argues lucidly, persuasively, even exhilaratingly at times. The nightly news will never appear exactly the same again ― Australian

Praise for The Confidence Trap: Runciman's book abounds with fresh insights, arresting paradoxes, and new ways of posing old problems -- Andrew Gamble ― Times Literary Supplement

This rich and refreshing book will be of intense interest to anyone puzzled by the near paralysis that seems to afflict democratic government in a number of countries -- John Gray ― New York Review of Books

As a corrective to the doom-and-gloomsters, this book makes some telling points, and he is a clear and forceful writer -- Mark Mazower ― Financial Times

Runciman is a good writer and brave pioneer. . . . The picture he sketches is agreeably bold ― Sydney Morning Herald

[An] ingenious account . . . Runciman concludes that democracy will probably survive, having made a delightfully stimulating, if counterintuitive case, that the unnerving tendency of democracies to stumble into crises is matched by their knack for getting out of them ― Publisher's Weekly

What we get here is good history. The events at the seven junctures are presented in a way that is learned, concise and informative -- Stein Ringen ― International Affairs

Those who cannot remember history, George Santayana observed, are condemned to repeat it. Except he's wrong, according to David Runciman. In his admirable analysis, How Democracy Ends, he says the trouble is that we remember the least helpful bits of history, perpetually harking back to the 1930s to explain the aspects of modern politics we like least: Trump especially. Really we'd be better off comparing and contrasting ourselves with ancient Athens, the world's purest democracy. ― Evening Standard

well-written -- Bryan Maye ― Irish Times

Book Description

David Runciman grapples with how character defines and limits the holders of the highest offices in the UK and America

Reviews:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful multi layered reading

s.s. · 5 November 2019

David Runciman has carved his place as the most insightful reviewer of political biography. Runciman's review of David Cameron's memoir in LRB is one of the reads of the year and with this book his credentials are brilliantly exercised. We get paragraphs of biography with insightful one liners that summarise the theme of this book: that politics are fraught with dilemmas despite many leaders attempts to reduce these to individual problems which can be solved by a will. The effectiveness of the writing is that while reading you transport yourself into the situations that Clinton, Blair and even Thatcher faced and ask the question of yourself; what would my response have been and what would it reveal about my underlying personality. There's a lot going on in this book not just in the events and individual leaders discussed but in the way we read people, how they view themselves and how circumstances reveal. Walking past Downing with the audiobook playing I felt myself almost transported inside and then beyond the walls to within the minds of some of the occupants from the recent past.

4.0 out of 5 stars A critique of political memoir

R. · 15 April 2022

This is a good, interesting and engaging book, but it doesn't fully deliver on what is promised.I read this book having enjoyed Runciman's podcast Talking Politics for some time, and the ability he demonstrates in the podcast to step back, get away from the immediacy of partisan politics, and assess matters with a longer term perspective are evident throughout Where Power Stops.Runciman starts with Lyndon B Johnson and works his way through most (not all) of the American Presidents and British Prime Ministers since. Setting up the essays to follow, Runciman states his intention to assess how politicians deal with the limits of their power. In particular, he talks about the manifest sense of destiny that Heads of Government bring with them and how that rubs up against the checks, balances, and frustrations of actual government.The chapters on Lyndon Johnson and Tony Blair, in many ways, are the most interesting. Runciman's assessment of the failures in Blair's personality that limited his achievements, particularly his tentativeness with Gordon Brown, are interesting (if, at times, assertive). Likewise his scepticism about the effectiveness of Blair's delivery units.The issue with the book is that the assessment of power's limits (where power stops) never really happens. In practice, this book is primarily a critique of political memoir, its conventions and its dishonesty. Runciman expends a great deal of energy analysing Presidential and Prime Ministerial memoirs, discounting the specifics of anecdotes and railing against the defensiveness of authors. What he doesn't do particularly is assess what they achieved in office. The result is that the book feels at times rather cynical. No Prime Minister or President gets a particularly positive review. Gordon Brown is afforded a few positive words, but for the most part this book considers every one of its subjects to be deluded, ineffective, and failed.

5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing analysis of political power

E.P. · 1 September 2019

This was an excellent late summer read. Got through in a day and very difficult to skip any words (author has a way with them) -yet alone paragraphs. OK, it was mostly a study on what others have written on some of our recent leaders, but it was an insightful analysis of such. Parts made me laugh and some to shed a tear. The title is apt indeed - the search for ultimate political power is a primitive driving force that some (possibly all politicians) have, but when achieved the exercising is invariably a challenge. But brilliant and surprising revelations. Eagerly await those of no 10's present incumbent !

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating

A.C. · 26 June 2020

Good book. Clear and well written. VG as a gift for students

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing

G.S. · 16 November 2020

This could have been an interesting book. It isn’t and the main reasons are because 1) it is very superficial in its portraits; and 2) the author’s prejudice/views are obvious on almost every page. Don’t bother.

2.0 out of 5 stars Superficial

R.D. · 15 November 2019

I was expecting a detailed account of how leaders were frustrated by the organisations they were supposed to run. Instead it was a rehash of a lot of journalistic memes.

More from this brand

Similar items from “Political Leaders & Leadership”

Share with

Or share with link

https://www.bolo.ae/products/K1788163346