Who Runs This Place?: The Anatomy of Britain in the 21st Century
No one has matched Sampson's combination of analysis, networking and sharp drafting ... A model of its kind Times Higher Education Supplement A compelling analysis of power The Times An exhilarating air of authority... [thanks to] its author's happy and unusual combination of wisdom and research Mail on Sunday An impressive and immediate air of gravitas. Sampson is a clear thinker who manages to gently ease the reader throuh a vast and complex subject Scotland on Sunday Many shrewd and informative chapters Sunday Telegraph A superb diagnosis... enormously readable, containing a wealth of entertaining apercus and digressions... [and] a wit that is as sharp as his scalpel New Statesman A coherent critique about the nature of political power in British society The Scotsman He has stood back from the trees and given us a view of the wood. He is right to find it rotten Sunday Times This is a wise, perceptive and not unduly pessimistic book Spectator Sampson sees power clearly and calmly, as Trollope or Galsworthy did; and it is not a pretty sight...He comes shrewdly at Mr Blair from an unprotected flank Daily Telegraph An important book, raising an increasingly urgent set of questions about who has the power in Tony Blair's Britain, and for whom they exercise it. The Spokesman Manifesto 50 His lucid prose dissects the new centres of power ... A bracing read JG Ballard, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year Brilliantly written and deeply sobering JG Ballard Indefatigable... in researching information and marshalling facts The Evening Standard Sampson succeeds in providing an exhaustive answer to the question he has set himself in the title The Guardian The leap this books asks us to make - the comparison between the Britain of 1962 and that of 2004 - is useful and hugely instructive. Guardian Britain's anatomy is...illuminated by the unmatched politico-social lucidity of a fine mind...a wonderfully dismaying book Nadine Gordimer, Times Literary Supplement Sampson's overview of today's corrupt, nepotistic, celebrity-obsessed Britain makes for fascinating, if depressing, reading Daily Telegraph 'A superb field-guide to "the masters of the marketplace" Independent A contemporary history with a strong sense of historical change John Hudson, BBC History This anatomy dissects an old organism still alive and diseased with new secrets The Times Sampson's last book is up there with his best Evening Standard Sampson blows away the smoke that obscures British democracy and ...dissects an old organism still alive and diseased with new secrets. The Times Anthony Sampson's Who Runs This Place? Asks New Labour's central question. Observer