Philip Stephens

The Path from Suez to Brexit

Britain Alone

A portrait of the British prime minister traces his life and political career from his youth to his leadership of the Labor party, examining his personality, beliefs, contradictions, and role in shaping the new global order.

The Making of a World Leader

Tony Blair

Susan Williams

This is the inspiring memoir of Philip Stephens, who has been in a wheelchair for 40 years since he broke his neck at the age of 18. He thrives on risk - scuba-diving, skiing, parasailing and extreme travelling. Philip came to define himself by his abilities rather than his disability. But his triumphs were entwined with further tragedy. His accident uncovered the secret his family had kept from him: the harrowing truth about his dangerous father. This is a tale of resilience and optimism. Philip reveals intimate details about his physical challenges, his sexual exploits and the emotional impact of life in a wheelchair. Through all his adversity, he is a captivating and amusing story-teller. The word Philip constantly uses about himself is "lucky".

The True Story of a Daredevil Quadriplegic

My Lucky Break

"A lavishly written, vividly imagined, and wholly compelling work of fiction...I was spellbound. Often, in fact, I was in awe."—Tim O'Brien After years of indie-label exile, folk singer Cyrus Harper returns to Apogee, Missouri, to tend to his mother. But the musical and haunted world of his past is morphing into just another strip of middle America, corrupted with pawn shops, meth labs, Clear Channel radio, and-if Cyrus's brother has his way-a golfer's paradise. As news of a murderess in the woods confounds the memories of his sister gone missing long ago, this prodigal son is drawn deeper into the cave- riddled realm of stalwarts and misfits he knew in his youth. What he discovers there will change everything. A phantasmagoric tale of American music set during the crucible of its changing industry, Miss Me When I'm Gone plumbs our storied melodies for their essential purpose-to mine the soul for the longing, the passion, the love and rage that drive us.

A Novel

Miss Me When I'm Gone

In the first ten years as Labour party leader, Tony Blair's image has changed from that of a wide-eyed innocent abroad in the political jungle to - some would say - a warmongering opportunist obsessed with his place in history and showing a barely disguised disdain both for his party and for Parliament.

The Price of Leadership

A magisterial and profoundly perceptive survey of Britain's post-war role on the global stage, from Suez to Brexit. 'Admirably lucid and measured, as well as studded with sharp pen portraits of the key players, Britain Alone gives us the fullest long-run political and diplomatic narrative yet of Britain's fateful, tragi-comic road to Brexit.' DAVID KYNASTON 'Philip Stephens has produced that rare thing - an instant classic. Britain Alone is the codebook we need to unravel the six and a half decades between Suez and Brexit, and Stephens is a master of historical codebreaking.' PETER HENNESSY How might we celebrate Britain's undoubted strengths while accepting that we have slipped from the top table? How can we act as a great nation while no longer pretending to be a great power? How might we be European and global? In 1962 the American statesman Dean Acheson famously charged that Britain had lost an empire and failed to find a new role. Nearly sixty years later the rebuke rings true again. Britain's postwar search for its place in the world has vexed prime ministers and government since the nation's great victory in 1945: the cost of winning the war was giving up the empire. After the humiliation of Anthony Eden's Suez expedition, Britain seemed for a time to have found an answer. Clinging to its self-image as a great island nation, it would serve as America's best friend while acknowledging its geography by signing up to membership of the European Union. Never a comfortable balancing act, for forty years it appeared to work. In 2016 David Cameron called the Brexit referendum and blew it up. Award-winning journalist Philip Stephens paints a fascinating portrait of a nation struggling to reconcile its waning power with past glory. Drawing on decades of personal contact and interviews with senior politicians and diplomats in Britain, the United States and across the capitals of Europe, Britain Alone is a vivid account of a proud nation struggling to admit it is no longer a great power. It is an indispensable guide to how we arrived at the state we are in. 'Compelling, informative and readable . . . offers much-needed substance.' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Fascinating.' IRISH TIMES 'Commanding.' SCOTSMAN 'A magnificent, exhilarating book, laying bare the contradictions, misunderstandings and delusions that led Britain first to build a bridge across the Channel and then bulldoze it . . . The book is much more than Brexit.' PROSPECT

Philip Stephens

About

Books

Join the club