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Zusatztext “This is the definitive account of how so much has gone and continue to go wrong with Britain’s institutions. Don’t read it all at once – it’s too depressing.” —Joan Bakewell! New Statesman Books of the Year “James Meek’s brilliant book! bracing in its detail and sweeping in its scope! makes it clear just how central privatisation is to the story of contemporary Britain: some of it will make you sad! some of it will make you furious! but you are guaranteed to be left feeling that you understand this country much better.” —John Lanchester! author of Capital and Whoops! “One of the most powerful critiques of the mess that is Britain’s economy.” —Aditya Chakrabotty “Do yourself a favour: read Private Island and find out what has really happened in Britain over the past 20 years.” —John Gray! Guardian “An energetic and colourfully told polemic against privatisation.” — Financial Times “You don’t have to be ... excessively sentimental about the public service ethos to find the story Meek tells here genuinely shocking.” —Jonathan Derbyshire! Prospect “[A] devastating account of the privatisation dogma of the past 25 years... As demolition jobs go! this can hardly be bettered.” —John Kampfner! Observer “If you have a taste for historical irony & absurdity! you'll love this book.” —Francis Wheen! Mail on Sunday “Entertaining! vastly intelligent.” — New Yorker Informationen zum Autor James Meek is a contributing editor of the London Review of Books. He is the author of six novels that have published in the UK, US, France and Germany, including The People's Act of Love , that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and won the Ondaatje Prize and Scottish Arts Council Award. We Are Now Beginning our Descent won the 2008 Le Prince Maurice Prize and The Heart Broke In was shortlisted for the 2012 Costa Prize. In 2004 he was named the Foreign Correspondent of the year by the British Press Awards and he contributes regularly to the Guardian , New York Times and International Herald Tribune . Website: www.jamesmeek.net Klappentext The bestselling author of novels "The People's Act Of Love, The Heart Broke In, We Are Now Beginning Our Descent" and many others shows how Britain's common wealth became private, and the impact it has had on us all. Meek explores the human stories behind the privatisation of rail, energy, water, postal services and municipal housing over the last 3 decades. A passionate anatomy of the state of the nation, now in paperback. Zusammenfassung How the British government packaged and sold its people to the world. ...
Report
James Meek's superb book exposes the perversities, hypocrisies and failures of privatisation. Meek is a writer of fiction as well as a journalist, and it shows: he crafts beautiful and vivid passages that turn what could be a dry subject into a highly readable study. Owen Jones New Statesman
