Ebook: Distilling the Frenzy: Writing the History of One's Own Timed

Cover; Title Page; Table of Contents; Dedication; INTRODUCTION : DISTILLING THE FRENZY: THE PSYCHODRAMATIC AND THE PROSAIC; 1 : THE HUMAN FOOTNOTE:; 2 : STAYING BEHIND, CATCHING UP AND LOOKING FORWARD:; 3 : AN INSTINCT TO INTERVENE:; 4 : CHILD OF THE URANIUM AGE:; 5 : THE THIN WISPS OF TOMORROW:; 6 : TASKS AND FLOWS:; 7 : A VERY PECULIAR PRACTICE:; 8 : POWER AND THE PURSUIT OF INFLUENCE:; 9 : THE VIEW FROM A HOGWARTIAN WINDOW:; 10 : THE POWER AND THE STORY:; 11 : PAPER TRAIL:; 12 : CONCLUSION THE TAXI DRIVER AND BERTRAND RUSSELL:; NOTES; A, B, C; INDEX; D, E, F; G, H, I; J, K, L; M, N, O.;In Distilling the Frenzy, the UK's leading contemporary historian examines the special considerations that apply to writing the history of one's own times, and revisits the grand themes running through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He looks at Britain's persistent impulse to punch well above its weight in the world; at the sustenance of the nuclear weapons policy which has accompanied that impulse; and at the intelligence operations which underpin it. For the human perspective on these huge issues, he applies his trademark blend of scholarship and wit to assess the contrasting styl.