Douglas Hurd
Autore di Robert Peel: A Biography
Sull'Autore
Fonte dell'immagine: Steve Punter
Opere di Douglas Hurd
Choose Your Weapons: The British Foreign Secretary: Two Centuries of Conflict and Personalities (2010) 37 copie
Choose Your Weapons: The British Foreign Secretary: 200 years of Argument, Success and Failure 3 copie
The Wind of Change: Harold Macmillan February 3 1960 - Great Speeches of the 20th Century (2007) — Prefazione — 3 copie
War Without Frontiers 1 copia
Last Day of Summer 1 copia
Send him victorious 1 copia
Opere correlate
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Nome legale
- Hurd, Douglas Richard
- Data di nascita
- 1930-03-08
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- UK
- Luogo di nascita
- Marlborough, Wiltshire, England, UK
- Istruzione
- University of Cambridge (Trinity College)
- Attività lavorative
- politician
novelist
Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (1974-1997|Conservative)
United Kingdom Minister of State for Europe (1979-1983|Conservative)
United Kingdom Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1984-1985|Conservative)
United Kingdom Secretary of State for the Home Department (1985-1989|Conservative) (mostra tutto 7)
United Kingdom Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1989-1995|Conservative) - Premi e riconoscimenti
- Order of the Companions of Honour (1995)
Life Peerage (Baron Hurd of Westwell, 1997)
Utenti
Recensioni
Premi e riconoscimenti
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 23
- Opere correlate
- 3
- Utenti
- 457
- Popolarità
- #53,730
- Voto
- 3.3
- Recensioni
- 6
- ISBN
- 50
This is the second of a near-future trilogy co-written by a future Foreign Secretary and one of the founders of Private Eye in the late 1960s, of which the third is Scotch on the Rocks. The scenario is simple: in the mid-1970s, China demands the return of Hong Kong to Chinese control twenty years early, and activates agents deep within the British establishment in order to stay on top of the UK’s nuclear bluff. There is a tremendously tense chase through the corridors of power and less salubrious parts of England, as vital communications in the days before mobile phones require in-person meetings. It’s not all that plausible but it’s well drawn.
I first read it in the 1990s, when Douglas Hurd was still in government and Hong Kong still under British rule, and was struck then by the hopelessness with which the British position is portrayed: the Hong Kong garrison might hold out for 48 hours against a Chinese attack if very lucky; popular sentiment in Hong Kong would certainly shift against the British immediately if withdrawal seemed a serious prospect; the nuclear submarine commander in the Pacific knows that he and his vessel will be destroyed in retaliation if they fire on China. The British establishment is generally weak and in disarray.
This time round, having been in China myself only five months ago, I was struck by the stereotyping of the Chinese leadership. Hurd (who turned 94 on 4 March) was posted to China early in his diplomatic career, soon after the Communist take-over at a time when the foreign ministry (as my friend Peter Martin has written) was probably at its least efficient. In real life, China was consumed with the Cultural Revolution in the period between this book being written and the time it is set. I would add though that the portrayal of Hong Kong is warm and surely based on personal knowledge.
An interesting speculation on a historical might-have-been.… (altro)