This is the sixth article in a six-piece symposium on Gordon Brown as intellectual. Other articles include:
John Lloyd on an intellectual in power
Iain McLean on other intellectual prime ministers throughout history
Daniel Johnson on Brown the unsophisticated bookworm
Geoff Mulgan on the American inspiration behind Brown’s thinking
Richard Cockett on the question of Brown’s religious faith
Kamran Nazeer on Brown’s book Courage
Discuss this article at First Drafts, Prospect’s new blog
Courage: Eight Portraits, by Gordon Brown
(Bloomsbury, £16.99)
How odd—after ten years in waiting, to bring out a book a few weeks before becoming prime minister, a book that is neither autobiography, chronicling the path to power, nor manifesto, setting out how power will be used. Instead, Gordon Brown has published a collection of eight profiles in courage. None of his subjects is a predecessor in the role of prime minister, and few even held government positions. Does this book tell us anything at all about the intellectual outlook of the primus inter pares as he enters No 10?
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