Book description
These political biographies are intended to analyse in depth the real
men lurking behind the personality cults of great contemporary
statesmen. Their purpose is to explain how such political leaders as Mao
Tse-Tung and Macmillan, de Gaulle and Stalin formed their political
outlooks, to examine how they gained power and how they held and
exercised it, and to suggest what each has come to epitomize in the eyes
of his own nation and of the world at large.
The political career of Harold Macmillan culminated in one of the
greatest enigmas in the politics of the last hundred years: an
intellectual, sensitive, aristocratic Prime minister whose premiership
is now remembered chiefly for its profligacy, scandal and vulgarity.
In the thirties Macmillan was one of the first to understand the
significance of Keyne's economic theories, to apprehend the growing
menace of Hitler and to accept Britain's changing place in the coming
Imperial revolution. In the sixties as Prime Minister he led a regime
notable for Premium Bonds, gaming saloons, "Never had it
good", government scandals and a mismanagement of resources which
brought England to the edge of crisis. Anthony Terrell Seward Sampson
(3 August 1926 - 18 December 2004) was a British writer and journalist.
He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford and
served with the Royal Navy from 1944-47. During the 1950s he edited the
magazine Drum in Johannesburg, South Africa. During this time, Sampson
met and formed relationships with future leaders such as Nelson Mandela,
and writers like Nadine Gordimer.
On returning to the United Kingdom he joined the editorial staff of
The Observer
, where he worked from 1955-66. Sampson was the author of a series of
major books, starting with Anatomy of Britain
(1962). His main themes were how Britain works as a state, and large
corporations. He was also a founding member of the (now defunct) Social
Democratic Party (SDP).
Sampson went on to write several other books about South Africa,
including The Treason Cage: The Opposition On Trial In South Africa
(1958), Common Sense About Africa
(1960) and South Africa: Two Views Of Separate Development
(1960) with S. Pienaar.
Sampson was the author of several books on Britain, which began with
Anatomy of Britain
(1963). In these works he focused on an explanation of the British
state and the functioning of large corporations.
In 1977, Sampson began contributing to Newsweek, and it was during this
time that he worked as an editorial consultant to the Brandt Commission.
By the 1980s, Sampson was editing The Sampson Letter,
and establishing links with the ANC in exile, as the apartheid era
began to draw to a close.
Sampson has narrated series for the BBC, and has held positions in
various organisations including Chairman of The Society of Authors,
trustee of the Guardian and Observer s Trust, and a member of the
international advisory board of Independent Newspapers (South Africa).
Sampson also wrote an official biography of Mandela, entitled
Mandela: The Authorised Biography
(1999), which won the Alan Paton Award.
Sampson wrote his autobiography, The Anatomist
, before he died of a heart attack on 18 December 2004. He is survived
by his wife, Sally (whom he married in 1965), and his two children.
