In Sickness and In Power

About In Sickness and In Power: Illness in Heads of Government during the last 100 years

 

“It is a major contribution to historical and political understanding that no one else could have written. I found I utterly absorbing, sometimes unexpectedly moving, and often quite frightening.”
David Marquand

New Statesman

 

“The book presents compelling evidence that the course of history has been changed again and again by the ill-health of world leaders.”
Daniel Finkelstein

The Times

 

“With a measured restraint appropriate to his medical past, Owen shows that, at crucial moments in their political lives, Eden and Kennedy were both unfit to yield the power they possessed.”
David Marquand

New Statesman

 

Political leaders' ill-conceived decisions are often connected to their own illness, claims David Owen in this revealing new book.

 

In Sickness and In Power looks at illness in heads of government between 1901 and 2007. It considers how illness and therapy – both physical and mental – affect the decision-making of heads of government, engendering folly, in the sense of foolishness, stupidity or rashness. Owen is particularly interested in leaders who were not ill in the conventional sense, whose cognitive faculties functioned well, but who developed a 'hubristic syndrome' that powerfully affected their performance and their actions. As we learn here, they suffer a loss of capacity and become excessively self-confident and contemptuous of advice that runs counter to what they believe, or sometimes of any advice at all.

 

Long fascinated with the inter-relationship between politics and medicine, David Owen uses his deep knowledge of both to look at sickness in political leaders. Owen expertly scrutinises such diverse political personalities as Sir Anthony Eden at the time of Suez in 1956; John F. Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961; the last Shah of Iran; and President Mitterrand of France who suffered from prostate cancer. The author also devotes a chapter to the hubristic behaviour and relationship between President Bush and Prime Minister Blair. The book ends by outlining some of the safeguards that society needs to address as a consequence of illness in heads of government.

 

'Owen treads where few have dared and the lessons he draws – especially regarding the policy consequences of intoxication with power and of aging – could not be more timely.' Zbigniew Brzezinski

former US National Security Advisor

 

'Lord Owen's unique credentials as politician and physician make In Sickness and in Power an essential book for those of us interested in a deeper look at why leaders do what they do. It is an astonishing piece of work'

Richard Reeves

author of President Kennedy: Profile of Power

 

'Owen has produced a compelling book'

Daniel Finkelstein

The Times

 

'A fascinating book'

Stefan Stern

Financial Times

 
'David Owen's fascinating book In Sickness and In Power...'

Michael Gove

The Times, August 2009

 

'David Owen's fascinating In Sickness and in Power is a study of the medical conditions of rulers ranging from Anthony Eden to JFK and from the Shah of Persia to François Mitterrand. Which is more alarming: the fact that they all suffered from illnesses that would have debarred them from top-level positions in almost any other walk of life, or the systematic deception that concealed their true condition from the people they led? A book to give you sleepless nights.'

David Marquand

New Statesmen Books of the Year 2008

The Author

David Owen

 

David Owen (Lord Owen) trained and practised as a medical doctor before being elected a Labour MP in his home city of Plymouth. He served as Foreign Secretary under James Callaghan from 1977 until 1979. He co-founded and went on to lead the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and is now a Crossbencher in the Lords. 

 

Among many books, he is the author of In Sickness and In Power - Illness in Heads of Government during the last 100 years, The Hubris Syndrome, Balkan Odyssey, a powerful autobiography, Time to Declare, the updated edition of which was published as part of Politico's Great Statesmen Series in August 2009, and a poetry anthology, Seven Ages.

Reviews

'It is a major contribution to historical and political understanding that no one else could have written. I found I utterly absorbing, sometimes unexpectedly moving, and often quite frightening.'

David Marquand, New Statesman

'The book presents compelling evidence that the course of history has been changed again and again by the ill-health of world leaders.'

Daniel Finkelstein, The Times

'With a measured restraint appropriate to his medical past, Owen shows that, at crucial moments in their political lives, Eden and Kennedy were both unfit to yield the power they possessed.'

David Marquand, New Statesman