Book description
2011 was an extraordinary year. And the Guardian was at the
very heart of it. It was a year that will be remembered for the phone
hacking scandal, uncovered only by the persistence and skill of
Guardian investigative reporter Nick Davies, and the seismic
changes it forced in the relationship between parliament, the media
and the police. It was a year that will be remembered because a
Guardian reporter was passed a memory stick, small enough to
hang on a key ring, but which contained 250. 000 US diplomatic cables
whose publication provoked reverberations around the world. And it was
a year packed with drama, tragedy and inspiration: the Arab spring;
the tsunami in Japan; the August riots; the killing of Bin Laden, the
capture of Mladic, and a royal wedding.
The year's events are vividly documented and debated here by writers
including David Leigh, Nick Davies, Marina Hyde, Polly Toynbee, Hadley
Freeman, Simon Jenkins and Jonathan Freedland. George Monbiot explains
why the Fukushima nuclear disaster affirmed his faith in atomic
energy, Charlie Brooker brilliantly satirises the case of a Twitter
user convicted over a joke, and Margaret Drabble lambasts the
coalition's plans for the NHS. Richard Williams celebrates the life of
Seve Ballesteros, Declan Walsh reveals the truth about Osama bin
Laden's last hours, and Jack Shenker reports on being caught in a
roundup by Egypt's notorious security services just before the fall of
Hosni Mubarak - in a revolution documented here by Ahdaf Soueif from
Tahrir Square.
Away from the big news stories, Decca Aitkenhead reveals another
side of Ann Widdecombe, poet Simon Armitage has a difficult encounter
with his musical hero Morrissey, and Steve Bell looks back over 30
years of cartooning for the Guardian. Martin Kettle
contemplates whether MI5 were right to spy on his father, and regular
Guardian correspondent David Hockney dashes off another
iPad-composed letter to the paper - this time not about smoking.
