A landmark history of the men and women who have defined the UK's role in the modern world - and what makes them special - by a seasoned political journalist.

A study of prime ministerial leadership in Britain and Australia. Tony Blair and John Howard were election winning leaders in two similar countries. They succeeded in dominating politics for over 10 years, but both fell dramatically from office. This book asks how these prime ministers established such predominant positions.

One of the world's leading woman politicians tells her inspiring story At forty-one, Gro Harlem Brundtland, physician and mother of four, was appointed prime minister of Norway-the youngest person and the first woman ever to hold that office. In this refreshingly forthright memoir, Brundtland traces her unusual and meteoric career. She grew up with strong role models-her parents were active in the Norwegian resistance and involved in postwar politics. She became known as a pro-choice crusader in the seventies and entered politics as the minister of the environment. She appointed eight women to her second eighteen-member cabinet, to this day a world record, and was the leading figure in the process that led to the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. As director-general of the World Health Organization since 1997, Brundtland is the first woman elected to run a major UN institution. Along the way, she met a host of international politicians, including Margaret Thatcher-who did not share Brundtland's view on feminism-Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan, and Hillary Clinton. Brundtland writes candidly and with humor about raising children in the political limelight and about dealing with political opposition and stereotypes about women. Hers is a fascinating story of one person's ability to make a difference-globally.

Over 300 years, fifty-seven individuals have held the office of British Prime Minister - who have been the best and worst?

This book is concerned with a large question in one small, but highly problematic case: how can a prime minister establish control and coordination across his or her government? The Greek system of government sustains a 'paradox of power' at its very core. The Constitution provides the prime minister with extensive and often unchecked powers. Yet, the operational structures, processes and resources around the prime minister undermine their power to manage the government. Through a study of all main premierships between 1974 and 2009, Prime Ministers in Greece argues that the Greek prime minister has been 'an emperor without clothes'. The costs of this paradox included the inability to achieve key policy objectives under successive governments and a fragmented system of governance that provided the backdrop to Greece's economic meltdown in 2010. Building on an unprecedented range of interviews and archival material, Featherstone and Papadimitriou set out to explore how this paradox has been sustained. They conclude with the Greek system meeting its 'nemesis': the arrival of the close supervision of its government by the 'Troika' - the representatives of Greece's creditors. The debt crisis challenged taboos and forced a self-reflection. It remains unclear, however, whether either the external strategy or the domestic response is likely to be sufficient to make the Greek system of governance 'fit for purpose'.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, Theresa May, and Donald Trump: each had different motivations, methods, and paths, but they all sought the highest office. And yet when they reached their goal, they often found that the power they had imagined was illusory. Their sweeping visions of reform faltered. They faced bureaucratic obstructions, but often the biggest obstruction was their own character. However, their personalities could help them as much as hurt them. Arguably the most successful of them, LBJ showed little indication that he supported what he is best known for - the Civil Rights Act - but his grit, resolve, and brute political skill saw him bend Congress to his will. David Runciman tackles the limitations of high office and how the personal histories of those who achieved the very pinnacles of power helped to define their successes and failures in office. These portraits show what characters are most effective in these offices. Could this be a blueprint for good and effective leadership in an age lacking good leaders?

Fresh out of college, and frustrated with own generation's political apathy, Brian Till set out to interview the former world leaders he most admired. To his surprise, they were eager to talk, and he soon found himself discussing everything from energy to terrorism to nuclear disarmament with the greatest leaders of the last twenty-five years. Here, he distills what they learned in office, their predictions for the future, and their advice for the leaders of tomorrow. Including interviews with: *Bill Clinton *Gro Bruntland *Jimmy Carter *Fernando Henrique Cardoso *Ehud Barak *Vaclav Havel *Mikhail Gorbachev *Pervez Musharraf *F.W. de Klerk *Ricardo Lagos *Helmut Schmidt *Goh Chok Tong *Paul Keating