Book description
Roy Jenkins follows up Churchill with a book of a very different shape;
short and semi-autobiographical, but also full of the wit and erudition
which make that book such a success. Each of the twelve cities are
described with a mixture of architectural interest, topographical
insight, and personal anecdote. Jenkins has three British cities:
Cardiff, which was the metropolis of his Monmouthshire childhood,
Birmingham which he represented in Parliament for 27 years, and Glasgow,
which aroused in him an enthusiasm far transcending politics. Further
afield there is Paris, Brussels, where he lived for four years as
President of the European Commission; Bonn, and Berlin, surveyed from
its pre-war splendour, through to its architectural resurgence of the
1990s, Naples and Barcelona. From Lord Jenkins's over a hundred visits
to North America there emerge highly personal recollections of New York
and a more objective view of the of Chicago. Dublin, so near to home and
yet so distant, makes up the dozen. Twelve Cities is a fascinating and
sparkling collection from one of our very finest writers Roy Jenkins
was the author of many books, including Churchill and Gladstone, which
won the Whitbread Prize for Biography. Active in British politics for
half a century, he entered the House of Commons in 1948 and subsequently
served as Minister of Aviation, Home Secretary, and Chancellor of the
Exchequer; he was also the President of the European Commission and
Chancellor of Oxford University. In 1987 he took his seat in the House
of Lords. He died in January 2003.
