Christmas Books: Mr Simpson Recommends

Tory MP Keith Simpson has recommended these books to his colleagues for their Christmas delight and delectation... Do read the last paragraph!

FOREIGN AFFAIRS TEAM CHRISTMAS READING LIST

In between religious festivities and family celebrations the Christmas recess offers us some time for further light reading and stretching the little grey cells. Those of us who are members of the front bench team or its supporters have the opportunity to read some of the books published over the past few months.

The situation in Iraq still dominates much of our thinking and Bob Woodward’s State of Denial Bush at War Part III (HB 2006) offers a lively and depressing account of the lead into and conduct of the Iraq War. Thomas E Rick’s Fiasco The American Military Adventure in Iraq (HB 2006) is less well known but provides a superb analysis of how the Pentagon and the US Armed forces planned for and implemented policy in Iraq; or rather how they didn’t, and how they responded to an insurgency they hadn’t prepared to fight.

Attempting to understand militant Islam must be one of our priorities. Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower Al Qaeda’s Road to 9/11 (HB 2006) is a more sophisticated analysis than many of the recent “instant” accounts.

Arthur Balfour is alleged to have said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, historians repeat each other”. But without some knowledge and feel for history we politicians will find it even more difficult to come to terms with the present and the future –Tony Blair may now regret having read law rather than history at Oxford.

Both President Bush and Pope Benedict have found themselves in difficulty by referring to “crusades”. Christopher Tyerman’s God’s War A New History of the Crusades (HB 2006) is a blockbuster of a history suitable for several long haul flights. A distinguished academic he writes with verve and skill giving a wider perspective and new interpretation beyond Stephen Runciman’s classic work.

Wars of empire help to define modern British history and William Dalyrmple’s The Lost Mughal The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857 (HB 2006) looks beyond the life and times of the last Mughal Emperor to the clash between Indian and British culture and power in 1857. Truly innovative, because Dalyrmple has used original sources that had been available in Delhi but other historians had overlooked. The Last Mughal is part sequel part antithesis to his White Mughals Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth Century India (PB 2005) about the multicultural and interracial alliances of an earlier generation of British men living in the Indian sub-continent.

The Conservative Party has had an ambivalent attitude towards Neville Chamberlain. Not until Margaret Thatcher did we have a leader who so dominated Party and Government, although in Chamberlain’s case for a mere three years. We are still haunted by the failure of his policy of appeasement. Robert Self has edited magisterially the voluminous Neville Chamberlain diary/letters - weekly letters he wrote to his spinster sisters – and has now published a new biography of Neville Chamberlain (HB2006) which, although a case for the defence, doesn’t duck judicious criticisms.

Simon Jenkins has the capacity to stimulate and annoy and is a writer and journalist with a long perspective. His Thatcher and Sons A Revolution in Three Acts (HB 2006) provocatively suggests that her influence has carried on under Blair and Brown.

Peter Hennessey has long been Whitehall’s unofficial historian and has written numerous books based upon insider interviews with politicians and mandarins as well as a thorough use of official documents. Having It So Good Britain in the Fifties (HB 2006) centres upon the politics and trauma of the Suez crisis in 1956, which, as on participant said had “no end of a lesson”. A suitable counterpoint to contemporary British foreign policy.

‘Tommy’ Lascelles managed as private secretary to glide effortlessly from Edward VIII, to George VI and briefly to Elizabeth II. Duff Hart Davis has now edited the third volume of his diaries and letters. King’s Counsellor : Abdication and War – the diaries of Tommy Lascelles (HB 2006) is something of a tease, as he has some gossip and observations but is really far too discreet. This final volume should be looked at after reading the two earlier volumes End of an Era (1986) and In Royal Service (1989) Tommy Lascelles had an ambivalent life like so many Royal courtiers of that generation but provided the lubricant between the dignified and efficient parts of our constitution.

Finally, some political relaxation can be found in reading Sandra Howard’s first novel Glass Houses (HB 2006). Set against the background of contemporary British politics, the heroine is a married government minister who has a passionate love affair with a national newspaper editor. Not a “bodice ripper” but certainly a highly readable novel that might just stimulate the blood vessels of the members of the 1922 Executive.