Sixty four years ago, on this day, June 10th, 1961 the UK scientific publication Nature runs an article by climatologist Gordon Manley about the recent symposium in New York…
It became abundantly clear how large a number of investigators are patiently accumulating evidence of the amplitude, character, effects and especially the dating of climatic fluctuations all over the world. Speculations regarding the causes abound; supporters of each of the popular theories-solar variation, atmospheric turbidity, carbon dioxide, ozone, variations in the Earth’s orbital elements-find their several gods alternately set up and cast down. Workers in one field find themselves unable to judge the validity of the evidence from other disciplines;
MANLEY, G. Solar Variations, Climatic Change and Related Geophysical Problems. Nature 190, 967–968 (1961). https://doi.org/10.1038/190967a0
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 317ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that the modern argument that carbon dioxide build-up would heat the planet had been given a huge boost in 1953 by Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass. The International Geophysical Year (1957-8) had added a bit to the interest.
The specific context was the New York Academy of Sciences had held a big symposium, and Plass, Herman Flohn and others were present. Manley was there too…The international linkages were there….
What I think we can learn from this
As human beings – we have had so many warnings for so long. The problem is not our brains, it’s our spines.
As “active citizens” is that the problem is not our brains, it’s our spines.
Academics might like to ponder – growing spines.
What happened next By 1963 the Conservation Foundation held a meeting just on carbon dioxide, proposed by the Yale biologist G Evelyn Hutchinson, though ironically he was unable to attend due to illness. The carbon dioxide build-up issue also began to work its way through the Presidents Science Advisory Council (LINK).
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Twenty years ago, on this day, June 9th, 2005, 24 companies say they would quite like to governments save the world (so they can continue making money),
24 large multinationals, including U.S. firms Hewlett-Packard and Ford, issued a statement in which they supported climate change measures, and pressured the G8 to adopt climate stabilization targets and set up a long-term, global climate change regime that would extend to 2030 at least, including a market-based system of emissions trading (World Economic Forum, 2005).
(Kolk and Pinkse, 2007:202)
Kolk, A. and Pinkse, J. 2007. Multinationals’ Political Activities on Climate Change. Business & Society Vol. 46, (2), pp.201-228.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that
a) The G7 had first mentioned carbon dioxide build-up at its 1979 meeting in Tokyo, and then again in 1985 in Bonn. b) Business had pushed hard against any climate action in 1990-1 and now, fifteen years later, some of them were having a few second thoughts.
The specific context was that there was now an EU Emissions Trading Scheme, and negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol were about to begin. But the major stumbling block was President Cheney. Sorry, “Bush.”
Prime Minister Tony Blair, hosting the G8 and keen for discussion to be Anything But Iraq, will have welcomed this. And his consiglieres may well have had a hand in making it happen – it’s a very Blair-ite stunt.
What I think we can learn from this
As human beings – we like to believe we are the good guys. It ain’t necessarily so.
As “active citizens” – business will always do this – deny costs, squeal about action, then demand someone else do something to clean up their mess.
Academics might like to ponder – their role in helping government and business versus the punters.
What happened next – more warm words (if not from the Cheney gang).
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Fifty-nine years ago, on this day, June 9th, 1966 , James Lovelock wrote a report.
Lovelock, “Combustion of Fossil Fuel: Large Scale Atmospheric Effects,” 9 June 1966,
box 34, Archive Collection of Professor James Lovelock, Science Museum Library and Archives,
Science Museum at Wroughton; hereafter abbreviated “CFF.” See Aronowsky Critical Inquiry
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 321ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that from 1953 scientists, with Gilbert Plass in the vanguard, then Roger Revelle etc, were banging on about carbon dioxide. By 1966 lots and lots of people knew about the outline of the problem. What Lovelock was commissioned to do was no huge biggie…
The specific context was that Lovelock was asked to do this by Shell, which had had a “nothing to see here, really” article in New Scientist in 1958.
What I think we can learn from this
As human beings – we knew plenty.
As “active citizens” we knew plenty.
Academics might like to ponder – knowledge doesn’t amount to power or efficacy. But who cares, as long as you get citations, eh?
What happened next Lovelock’s paper was read by top UK scientist Graham Sutton (formerly of the Met Office) in January 1967, and a senior civil servant (and possible spy?) Victor Rothschild, said it should be kept shtum (LINK).
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
On this day June 4, 1984, 41 years ago, the new boss of the Met Office, John Houghton, wanted to get cracking on the climate issue,
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 345ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context for this was that the previous Met Office boss, John Mason, was pretty opposed to the idea that carbon dioxide was a problem (that is not to say he actively blocked the excellent scientists working on the issue at the Met Office). Houghton had very different views, thank goodness.
The specific context was by late 1983 various reports and meetings had taken place. It was clear carbon dioxide was going to be a serious topic of research and – sooner or later – policy attention.
What I think we can learn is this:
As human beings – we are smart enough to cause problems for ourselves, and smart enough to see the underlying causes. But actually fixing them? Harder…
As “active” citizens – see above.
Academics might want to ponder – their role in continuing the mystification, either by studying the wrong things, or “communicating” to the wrong people, or to the right people in terrible ways.
What happened next: Houghton kept going, as did his Met Office colleagues. Houghton had to retire as Met Office boss in 1990, and then became first head of Working Group 1 of the IPCC.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Heaps of stuff about the Met Office etc
References
(as academic as possible, with DOIs if they exist.) hyperlinks.
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
On this day June 1, 1989, 36 years ago – the UK Labour party’s energy spokesman, a young ambitious MP called Tony Blair, was reported to have spoken out against a carbon tax, on the front page of the Independent.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 353ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context for this was scientists had been warning politicians for a good 10 years (longer in some places) about carbon dioxide build-up.
The specific context was that in September 1988 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had given a pivotal speech to the Royal Society in London, saying the Greenhouse Effect was indeed here. In May 1989 Blair had already spoken out saying that market forces might not be able to solve the problem. Now he was willing to say state action wouldn’t work. Anything for a headline, whatever nonsense suited the moment. Blair only was consistent when waging class wars and, er, real wars.
What I think we can learn is this:
As human beings – the solutions to the problem were unpalatable, and because we turned from them then, well, we are now quite fubarred.
As “active citizens” – politicians in opposition oppose – no matter what is being proposed might have some merit – their need is to oppose. It’s all kayfabe.
Academics might want to ponder their complicity in this kayfabe.
What happened next: The tax idea tanked (it’s probably that its opponents within the Civil Service and Government had leaked it to help win their battle). Eventually carbon pricing did come into existence, if not to meaningful effect.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Tony Blair and the loong history…
References
(as academic as possible, with DOIs if they exist.) hyperlinks.
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Nineteen years ago, on this day, May 23rd, 2006 David Attenborough was interviewed on Ten O’Clock news about his acceptance of climate science, ahead of the showing of a two part documentary.
Are We Changing Planet Earth? and Can We Save Planet Earth? are two programmes that form a documentary about global warming, presented by David Attenborough. They were first broadcast in the United Kingdom on 24 May and 1 June 2006 respectively.
Part of a themed season by the BBC entitled “Climate Chaos”, the programmes were produced in conjunction with the Discovery Channel and the Open University.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was Attenborough had maintained a studied silence on the question of carbon dioxide build-up. This had been spotted by the likes of George Monbiot –
Since 1985, when I worked in the department that has made most of his programmes, I have pressed the BBC to reveal environmental realities, often with dismal results. In 1995 I spent several months with a producer, developing a novel and imaginative proposal for an environmental series. The producer returned from his meeting with the channel controller in a state of shock. “He just looked at the title and asked ‘Is this environment?’ I said yes. He said, ‘I’ve spent two years trying to get environment off this fucking channel. Why the fuck are you bringing me environment?’”
I later discovered that this response was typical. The controllers weren’t indifferent. They were actively hostile. If you ask me whether the BBC or ExxonMobil has done more to frustrate environmental action in this country, I would say the BBC.
We all knew that only one person had the power to break this dam. For decades David Attenborough, a former channel controller widely seen as the living embodiment of the BBC, has been able to make any programme he wants. So where, we kept asking, was he? At last, in 2000, he presented an environmental series: State of the Planet.
It was an interesting and watchable series, but it left us with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Only in the last few seconds of the final episode was there a hint that structural forces might be at play: “Real success can only come if there’s a change in our societies, in our economics and in our politics.” But what change? What economics? What politics? He had given us no clues.
What I think we can learn from this is that we have been so poorly served by the mass media. But then, the mass media is not there to raise the awareness of the masses, now, is it?
As of May 2025 Attenborough, at 99, is still going.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Earl of Halsbury (this chap – who introduced the amendment that became, well, Section 28) said the following
Take, for example, the problem of the glasshouse effect and so on—the rise of carbon dioxide —when nothing we do in this country can make very much difference to the carbon dioxide content in the world, but of course what the world does can make quite a big difference to the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere over this country. But the latest and most refined mathematical calculations—these have reached me only in the last few weeks, so they are stop press news—indicate that the atmospheric effects are a good deal more sophisticated than was originally thought. We may be going to be faced, for example, with much more in the way of local, than global, effects; there will be droughts in places where we are no longer accustomed to having droughts, and there will be floods where we are not accustomed to having floods. But all that lies a long way in the future.
Plant photosynthesis is at an optimum when the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere is three times what it is. Maybe that is what the long-term historical average has always been and plants have adapted to it. Maybe we are merely living in a carbon dioxide world at the present time. The great storehouse of carbon dioxide is the sea, and the sea and the atmosphere interchange carbon dioxide—nobody knows the details. If the sea warms up, it emits carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and if it cools down it absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Having absorbed it, it can fix some of it as coral, future limestone rocks and so on. If we want to know more about that we must study not the atmosphere but oceanography because the two interreact and we shall never understand the atmosphere until we understand the oceans or vice versa. It may be a rather strange conclusion to say that if you want to know about the glasshouse effect, do not bother about measuring the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere but study oceanography. It is an example of how one adjusts one’s priorities if one thinks in the right timescale.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 341ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the Labour government had set up the “Commission on Energy and the Environment” in 1977. It decided its first report would be on Coal. Brian Flowers, its chair, was persuaded by John Mason to soft-pedal on the carbon dioxide atmosphere issue. By the time the report finally came out, the Conservatives were in charge, and CENE basically got buried. This parliamentary debate is against that backdrop.
What I think we can learn from this
Official reports and commissions of the Great and the Good might be worth reading or then again, they might not be worth a bucket of warm spit. It depends both on the official terms of reference and the unspoken (but still official!) ones.
What happened next CENE disappeared. The climate issue it ignored did not.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Thirty six years ago, on this day, May 9th, 1989 that nice young Tony Blair has an opinion piece in the Guardian. It includes the immortal lines
“From the moment Mrs Thatcher took up the greenhouse effect she has been at risk. Market forces cannot solve it. Indeed, they may have caused it.”
And later
“It is wholly impractical to solve the greenhouse effect through increased reliance on nuclear power.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Margarat Thatcher had performed an astonishing reverse-ferret in September 1988, and brought “the greenhouse effect” onto the political agenda. Then,her bluff was called by various NGOs, who threw down a thirty point “green gauntlet” in November. It was obvious she was all mouth and no trousers. Labour had to have a response, and this was it…
What I think we can learn from this is political parties are always seeking out – or responding to – “issues” thrown up by social movements, the media.
What happened next. A few weeks later Blair would be rubbishing the idea of any carbon taxes.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
References
Blair, T. 1989. People switch on to the age of the green light-bulb. The Guardian, May 9, p.9
Seventeen years ago, on this day, May 8th, 2008, the two year flirtation with carbon rationing came to an end…
Ministers have scrapped radical plans to test a carbon rationing scheme that would have forced citizens to carry a carbon card to swipe every time they bought petrol or paid an electricity bill.
The plan was announced by David Miliband, former environment secretary, in 2006 as a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions and tackle global warming. But officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said today that the idea was too expensive and would be unpopular.
Defra said a feasibility study found that carbon rationing was “an idea ahead of its time in terms of its public acceptability and the technology to bring down costs.” While there were “no insurmountable technical obstacles”, the study found such a scheme would cost £1-2bn each year and would be perceived as unfair.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that in 2006 the climate issue had “broken through” again (Al Gore’s film, Kyoto-sequel preparations, Hurricane Katrina, EUETS, Climate Camp etc etc) and the British state had started looking at what it could do (still in the context of a target of a 60 per cent reduction by 2050 target). Carbon rationing was in the mix, though it’s not clear to me how seriously.
What I think we can learn from this is that you can know it’s an emergency and still be unable to act, to be paralysed by complexity, indecision, powerlessness. Welcome to the Anthropocene.
What happened nextThe whole carbon rationing thing kinda disappeared. The best thing it left us was two really good young adult fiction novels by Saci Lloyd – the Carbon Diaries 2015 and Carbon Diaries 2017.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Former Prime Minister Tony “I actually belong at The Hague” Blair has offered us all some more of his ineffable and ineluctable pearls of wisdom. This time, on climate change. Apparently phasing out fossil fuels is doomed to fail and impractical (we will come back to this).
Labour politicians, most who did not serve under him, are predictably irritated, though Keir Starmer, in a surprise move, says that black is white, ignorance is strength etc and that Blair is aligned with Labour policy (on carbon capture).
Liberals will talk patronisingly and cod-Freudianly about “Relevance Deprivation Syndrome” – of Blair as an antinomian ha-been who once bestrode the world stage like a Poundstore colossus, chumming it up with George and Silvio and is now reduced to palling around with petrostate assholes instead (because, you know, George and Silvio were so much, well ‘classier’.)
Radicals will say “why does the media give this has-been oxygen? Are they just trolling us? Blair is a GODDAM WAR CRIMINAL.”
Reform bosses will say “more of this please, especially ahead of the local elections and that by-election.”
Everyone in between will just sigh, roll their eyes and doomscroll right on past to other less outraging sources of outrage.
I’m writing this simply because I spent a little time this morning working on the indexing (currently slipshod af) of my All Our Yesterdays site, and since Blair popped up a bit, I thought I’d write something brief about Blair, climate and carbon capture and storage and close out with my usual quote about “practicality.”
Blair and hot air
First of several fun facts – Tony Blair was born on May 6 1953, which was the day that newspapers around the world (US, Australia etc) carried news of a warning by Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass that the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thanks to the burning of fossil fuels, would mean a rise in global temperatures, melting ice-caps and all the rest of it. For the next thirty five years, scientists would beaver away. Ultimately, Plass was right….
Tony Blair was a new keen MP when the climate issue “broke through” in 1988. These were the days of Neil Kinnock as Labour leader. Already it was obvious that Blair – by all accounts not exactly the sharpest tool in the box – was doing what all his fellow politicians were doing – seeing the climate issue (existential, super-wicked) as another opportunity for political games.
The Thatcher government, thanks to her speech in September 1988 to the Royal Society, was having to grapple with what to do about the “greenhouse effect.” There were some within the civil service and government saying “well, you know, we tax things we think are bad, to discourage them… soooo….” This was not a popular view within government, and either to kill it or boost it, somebody leaked it to the media. It was covered on the front page of the Independent on June 1 1989. And, well
In the aftermath of John Smith’s sudden death, Blair became Labour leader thanks to The Infamous Dinner. Climate change was really not an “issue” for the electorate in 1995-1997 (though of course it could and should have been, but this is the world we live in.
Blair’s deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, was at the Kyoto COP in December 1997 and much was made of the UK promise to go “beyond” Kyoto in terms of carbon emissions cuts. The simple reality was that these were, to paraphrase Dire Straits, “Reductions for Nothing” – they were an artefact of a) the “dash for gas” (i.e. the partial phasing out coal-burning for electricity generation – though that phase out is clear in retrospect – until early 2010s the plan was for coal to stick around and b) deindustrialisation – factories getting exported to India, China etc.
Blair managed not to hold businesses feet to the fire on a climate levy, and generally continued with lipservice and all the rest of it. Sometimes uttered some Fine Words like these at the Sustainable Development summit in September 2002
Mr President and colleagues. We know the problems. A child in Africa dies every three seconds from famine, disease or conflict. We know that if climate change is not stopped, all parts of the world will suffer. Some will even be destroyed, and we know the solution – sustainable development. So the issue for this summit is the political will.
But it wasn’t until 2004 that Blair really started leaning into the pieties. What happened? Well, there was the small matter of the attack on Iraq that wasn’t going so well, and the impending G8 summit, the one the UK was hosting. Rather like Richard Nixon going “green” in 1969 to try to change the topic from Vietnam All The Time, Blair wanted to have a different mood music for his various crusades.
What is now plain is that the emission of greenhouse gases, associated with industrialisation and strong economic growth from a world population that has increased sixfold in 200 years, is causing global warming at a rate that began as significant, has become alarming and is simply unsustainable in the long-term. And by long-term I do not mean centuries ahead. I mean within the lifetime of my children certainly; and possibly within my own. And by unsustainable, I do not mean a phenomenon causing problems of adjustment. I mean a challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence.
As best I can tell,it’s the first time carbon capture and storage got a run from him.
“And carbon sequestration: literally capturing carbon and storing it in the ground, also has real potential. BP are already involved in an Algerian project which aims to store 17 million tonnes of CO2.”
[Fun fact – BP had to end the Algerian jaunt because the carbon didn’t stay stored]
So Blair got his wish – the 2005 G8 Gleneagles was about “Make Poverty History” and some long-forgotten promises on climate – and the launch of all the tosh about carbon capture and storage.
Blair by then was on borrowed time, and his pivot towards nuclear, cloaked as climate concern, came as no surprise.
Praktisch
Blair is one of those “politics is the art of the possible” kinda guys. Always happy to remind you that some things are impossible and unrealistic- feeding people, decent housing, preparing for climate change while others – starting wars, ignoring climate change – are the normal behaviour of ‘responsible’ people.
‘Responsible’ people like him. They have known about climate change for four decades. We are living in the world they are responsible for. They are going to be – inevitably now I think – quite literally the death of us all.
And so I will close out with a quote, one I use often, but probably not often enough, from a wonderful memoir about World War 2. The author, an American doctor serving in Europe in late 1944, encounters a young German, called Manfred. Manfred had offered his services to the Allies, who put him in a German army uniform, parachuted him behind the German lines. His job was to gather as much useful military intelligence as he could, get captured by the advancing American troops and then spill everything he knew. Given that the Gestapo and Abwehr etc knew about this, and were on the look out for the Manfreds, this was, ah, mildly brave.
Manfred hears some of the American troops talking about “being practical” and starts muttering to himself. The author of the book, asks-
“… the word praktisch had been a two-syllable club he’d been beaten with by fellow students and teachers and businessmen and clergy all through the nightmare years. “Stop being such a god-damned idealist! Be practical!”“Practical means I know right from wrong but I’m too fucking scared to do what’s right so I commit crimes or permit crimes and I say I’m only being practical. Practical means coward. Practical frequently means stupid. Someone is too goddamn dumb to realize the consequences of what he’s doing and he hides under practical. It also means corrupt: I know what I ought to do but I’m being paid to do something different so I call it practical. Practical is an umbrella for everything lousy people do.”
There is a thing called the Keeling Curve (see my tattoo of it here).
It measures the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
When Blair was born, 6 May 1953 the C02 level was about 310ppm (we didn’t have the Keeling Curve then – it starts in 1958. We have ice cores, though…)
When Blair took office in 1997 the C02 level was 363ppm
When Blair left office in 2007 the C02 level was 384ppm
Today it is 430ish, and climbing fast. It could have been different. If Blair had had courage, or principles – which he would only have had if forced to by unflinching social movements capable of pushing back against State and Corporate power – then it might have been different
Things I will read someday, if only to understand Blair more
Leo Abse- “Blair the man behind the smile”
There’s also these – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/may/05/biography.politicalbooks
