Haldane

Haldane Synopsis

A Sunday Times Politics and Current Affairs Book of the Year

A Telegraph Best Book of the Year

Can you name the creator of the Territorial Army and the British Expeditionary Force? The man who laid the foundation stones of MI5, MI6, the RAF, the LSE, Imperial College, the 'redbrick' universities and the Medical Research Council? This book reveals that great figure: Richard Burdon Haldane. As a philosopher-statesman, his groundbreaking proposals on defence, education and government structure were astonishingly ahead of his time-the very building blocks of modern Britain.

His networks ranged from Wilde to Einstein, Churchill to Carnegie, King to Kaiser; he pioneered cross-party, cross-sector cooperation. Yet in 1915 Haldane was ejected from the Liberal government, unjustly vilified as a German sympathiser. John Campbell charts these ups and downs, reveals Haldane's intensely personal side through previously unpublished private correspondence, and shows his enormous relevance in our search for just societies today.

Amidst political and national instability, it is time to reinstate Haldane as Britain's outstanding example of true statesmanship.

• A new biography of a towering figure in 20thc British politics, revealing his relevance for our contemporary crises.
• Uses previously unpublished private correspondence, to reveal the intensely personal side of Haldane.
• Haldane was the creator of the Territorial Army and laid the foundations of such crucial institutions as MI5, MI6, the RAF, the LSE, and the Medical Research Council