Book description
Are you happy? Does it matter?
Increasingly, governments seem to think so. As the UK government
conducts its first happiness survey, in this digital first, 15,000
word ebook Alastair Campbell looks at happiness as a political as well
as a personal issue; what it should mean to us, what it means to him.
Taking in economic theories and the example of Bhutan - which measures
'gross national happiness' ahead of gross domestic product - he
questions how happiness can survive in a grossly negative media
culture, and how it could inform social policy.
But happiness is also deeply personal. Campbell, who suffers from
depression, looks in the mirror and finds a bittersweet reflection, a
life divided between the bad and not-so-bad days, where the highest
achievements in his professional life could leave him numb, and he can
somehow look back on a catastrophic breakdown 25 years ago as the best
thing that happened to him; he writes too of what he has learnt from
the recent death of his best friend, further informing his view that
the pursuit of happiness is a long game.
Part of the Brain Shots series, the pre-eminent source for high
quality, short-form digital non-fiction.
Alastair Campbell was born in Keighley, Yorkshire, in 1957, the son
of a vet. After graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in
modern languages, his first chosen career was journalism, principally
with the Mirror Group. Campbell worked for Tony Blair - first as press
secretary, then as official spokesman and director of communications and
strategy - from 1994 to 2003, since when he has been mainly engaged in
writing, public speaking, working for Leukaemia Research, where he is
chairman of fundraising, and continuing to advise Blair, Gordon Brown
and other leading Labour figures. His interests include running,
cycling, playing the bagpipes and following the varying fortunes of
Burnley Football Club.
