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Blair Unbound | 
 enlarge | Authors: Anthony Seldon, Peter Snowdon, Daniel Collings
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £25.00
Buy New: £18.99
You Save: £6.01 (24%)
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 160204
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 688
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 2.1
ISBN: 1847370780
Dewey Decimal Number: 941.085092
EAN: 9781847370785
ASIN: 1847370780
Publication Date: November 5, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 The best book on Blair yet, if not ever. December 23, 2007
Hester Bertish (brighton)
21 out of 25 found this review helpful
Judging by the footnotes, this book has been meticulously researched. The author evidently had access to Blair's advisors and close team. More of his witnesess are civil servants than politicians. As a result, it is actually a very balanced analysis. The reviews below miss this point, and are both clearly anti-Blair. This book isn't written to verbally bash the man. There is no reason for the author to be biased. He sets outs the facts, as reported by those close to the key events, and lets the reader interpret and judge the man, rather than the author doing it himself. This surely is the purpose of all contemporary biography. Let us leave it to future historians to decide this man's place in British and world politics.
 Thorough, balanced, very good... but not an all time great January 8, 2008
Ch0pski (London, UK)
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
This is a very readable book - I enjoyed it and chomped my way through it in no time at all. (Bite sizes structure made it splendid reading on the loo in fact!).
Seldon has clearly had great access to Blair's advisors, though it's a bit light on new material from Blair's politician peers. There's a lot lifted from autobiographies from people like Campbell and Blunkett.
Analysis of issues is strong: very balanced and concise.
But - other than the marvelous blow by blow section on how Blair and his team handled the 7/7 bombings - the book a bit short on the human interest details that could have made this a really great book.
As it stands it's well worth a read for people interested in general modern UK politics, or those wishing to gain an insight in to the machinations of life inside Number 10 during the second half of the Blair years.
 This book is trash through and through... January 6, 2009
Rerevisionist (Manchester, England)
Fascinating to see what in effect is an official account of Blair. The sources are largely anonymous interviews and it's amusing to think of the rubbish deposited at the Bodleian. There are three authors listed overtly, and a dozen or more in the acknowledgements.
The author is a headmaster and 25 titles are listed since 1981, many joitnly authored or edited books. In effect these books are ghosted by teams, and most input seems to be from journalists. The acknowledgements state that 'any profits will go to charity' and one susecpts the whole thing was a funded job by pressure groups, probably NWO/ Bilderberg/ Labour Party/ Jewsih groups.
The style was I think established by books on J F Kennedy: lots on clothes, food, arguments, interior decor, meeting places. Lots on personalities insofar as permitted. Nothing whatever on underlying military/ financial structure, establishment officials, banks and money, weapons.... Imagine a book on schoolboys educated in nothing much squabbling while the real actors make decisions elsewhere. That's this book.
What does it miss out? Well - it kicks off with 9/11 2001. The description says nothing of radar defences of the USA, airport manipulations, Silverstein. Rather amusingly shows the 'intelligence heads' and Blair watching TV. Nothing about WTC7 and the BBC. The implication is that Blair and the rest are innocent bewildered people overtaken by events, naturally enough the official version.
Without going into immense detail, the same sort of thing is true throughout the book. Kosovo for example has no mention anywhere of Muslims; probably Seldon knows nothing about them in any case. Iraq is represented as it might be by CNN or the BBC. David Kelly, probably murdered, isn't even in the index! Such things as the PFI scandals and for example 'academies' - an excuse for 'sponsors' to take public money - barely geta mention.
Throughout the time supposedly covered by this book, Britain and Europe were subject to what must be deliberate flooding by immigrants, an EU policy. The Human Rights Act was used as a pretext to allow this. Again, it isn't even indexed. There is establishment stuff on the EU - constitution, referendum etc - with no indication that any of the authors have a clue as to its likely impact - for example the closing down of Parliament and rule by unelected bureaucrats.
I bought this out of curiosity, remainded for 4.99 about 18 months after it was published. It is utter trash. Britain has caught up with the plaster monument era of J F Kennedy.
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