Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #154535 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Matthew Parris
This is psychobiography without the psychobabble. I found it absorbing, clear, lively and persuasive. I think David Owen is right.

Dr Raj Persaud
A unique and penetrating insight. Anyone who intends to vote at any election should read this book first.

Synopsis
For many politicians, power seems to go to their head, and becomes a heady drug affecting every action they take. The Greeks called it hubris, where the hero wins glory, acclaim and success - but it is often followed by nemesis. David Owen suggests George Bush and Tony Blair developed a Hubristic Syndrome while in power. He provides a powerful analysis, looking at their behaviour, beliefs and governing style, in particular the nature of their hubristic incompetence in handling the Iraq War. Both of them, and in her last year in office, Margaret Thatcher, developed many of the tell-tale and defining symptoms. A statesman, politician and medical doctor, with personal knowledge of the war in the Balkans, David Owen has unique insight into Blair's premiership, including several meetings and conversations with Blair from 1996-2004. With his long political experience, Owen has written a devastating critique of the way that Bush and Blair manipulated intelligence and failed to plan for the aftermath of taking Baghdad.

Their messianic manner, excessive confidence in their own judgement, and unshakeable belief that they will be vindicated by a 'higher court', have doomed what the author believes could have been a successful democratic transformation of Iraq.

Customer Reviews

THe Hubris Syndrome
This is a well thought out and intuitively constructed book confirming what many people suspected: Bush and Blair were corrupted by the powers that they were given and because of their misguided actions the world is in a more difficult place.

Suddenly, everything about Blair's premiership becomes clear.
I cannot imagine a more convincing indictment of Blair post 9/11. I was surprised to find myself utterly persuaded by the hypothesis and, in fact, even if I were not, the cool, clear analysis of events is as compelling and conclusive a critique of his failure as any I have read. Now I want the same criteria applied to every current PM, Cabinet Minister, MP...

A frightening little book
This is an interesting, and frightening, book by someone with intimate experience of both politics and medicine chronicling a selection of beloved leaders portrayed as physically or mentally suspect.