Dissects the way that politicians like Blair and Bush have used and abused history to justify the new world order they are creating. This book compares political events with other crises, ranging from 17th-century England to Weimar Germany, to argue that the risks of such crises have been exaggerated, manipulated, and misunderstood.

Preface ix CHAPTER ONE: Introduction: September 11 and the New World Order 1 PART ONE: Tony Blair, History and Risk CHAPTER TWO: Tony Blair and the Politics of Good Intentions 31 CHAPTER THREE: Taking a Chance on War: The Worst-Case Scenarios 55 CHAPTER FOUR: Taking a Chance on War: Suez and Iraq 67 CHAPTER FIVE: Who Knows Best? 81 CHAPTER SIX: Weimar Iraq 103 PART TWO: Britain, Europe and the United States CHAPTER SEVEN: A Bear Armed with a Gun 123 CHAPTER EIGHT: The Garden, the Park, the Meadow 135 CHAPTER NINE: Two Revolutions, One Revolutionary 155 CHAPTER TEN: Epilogue: Virtual Politics 175 Notes 191 Index 207

"Mr. Runciman is a keen observer of contemporary political life whose sophisticated sense of history both tempers and enlivens his often thrilling polemics. Over the course of the collection, Mr. Runciman compares the political fallout from Iraq to the Suez crisis, uses the model of Weimar Germany to explore the possibilities of Iraqi reconstruction and democracy, and borrows from thinkers like Max Weber to shed light on contemporary politics. The results are never pedantic and almost always deeply revealing."--Jason Moring, New York Observer "Runciman concludes, there is little new about the new world order. Whatever difficulties it throws up are best dealt with by going back to political basics--having strong parties, muscular parliaments, balanced constitutions, an alert judiciary and a watchful public. It is a measure of how far we have traveled from the liberal democratic norm that this comes across as a radical cry."--Alison Rowat, The Herald "The proximate cause of Tony Blair's decline is self-evident: the Iraq war and its sequel. However, as David Runciman shows in this mordant study of political hypocrisy and the misuse of history in our time, the inability to distinguish make-believe from facts, the contempt for due process and the almost willful ignorance of history that were the hallmarks of Blai"s Iraq adventure could, and should, have been detected well before it."--David Marquand, New Statesman "David Runciman provides a brilliant analysis of the contemporary politics of fear by situating the post-9/11 world within a layering of temporal periods and using the broad historical time in juxtaposition with 'election time' and 'news time'. Through such a prism the fear generated and hypocrisy of much current political discourse and justification for the pursuit of war in Iraq is dissected."--David Ryan, International Affairs "David Runciman combines the expositional clarity of a talented political journalist and commentator with the conceptual concerns, historical depth, erudition, and theoretical sophistication of a gifted scholar. The result is a lucidly and gracefully written book that usefully probes fundamental issues raised by both the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and the highly dubious patterns of response associated with the political leadership of George W. Bush in the United States and Tony Blair in the United Kingdom."--Richard Falk, International History Review "This is a powerful piece, a short critique of the types of rhetorical arguments used by the creator of New Labor in his notorious 'preacher on a tank' mode. Runciman assails the use of 'new dangers' as a justification for 'new obediences,' the way that if a 'risk' is 'new,' a democratic leader need not make the normal informed balance of known risk and known freedoms, and thus the way that not taking the country to war becomes a 'risk no responsible government could afford to take.' ... Essential for understanding how he is likely to be judged when he leaves office? Sadly, absolutely."--Peter Stothard, Globe and Mail "The Politics of Good Intentions ... signals a welcome re-engagement of contemporary political thinkers with politicians' thought. We can but hope that Runciman's efforts will be reciprocated."--Political Studies Review

"Wonderfully written, lively, and energetic, The Politics of Good Intentions provides an illuminating guide to a host of contemporary issues, both practical and theoretical. Runciman marches to the beat of no drummer; his analysis is invariably fresh and often remarkably creative."—Cass Sunstein, Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor, Law School and Department of Political Science, University of Chicago"Whenever I read David Runciman, I'm reminded of what I'm always missing in contemporary political writing: perspective. Theoretically sophisticated and empirically concrete, witty and serious, historical and contemporary, Runciman is the E. H. Carr or A. J. P. Taylor of our times—always engaged, always pushing, always a surprise. His is a genuinely transatlantic voice of sanity and hope, which should be heard on both sides of our shared pond."—Corey Robin, City University of New York, author of Fear: The History of a Political Idea"We have been waiting for a book on the world after 9/11 and the decision to go to war in Iraq, and this is it. David Runciman's The Politics of Good Intentions is a masterly analysis of the mix of moralizing illusion and economy with the truth that has infected politics since the terrorist attacks, and which took the U.S. and Britain into an unending war in Iraq. Rigorously reasoned and written with a spare elegance and grace, this will be the canonical book on Blair, Bush, and Iraq for some time to come."—John Gray, London School of Economics, author of Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern and Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

Wonderfully written, lively, and energetic, The Politics of Good Intentions provides an illuminating guide to a host of contemporary issues, both practical and theoretical. Runciman marches to the beat of no drummer; his analysis is invariably fresh and often remarkably creative. -- Cass Sunstein, Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor, Law School and Department of Political Science, University of Chicago Whenever I read David Runciman, I'm reminded of what I'm always missing in contemporary political writing: perspective. Theoretically sophisticated and empirically concrete, witty and serious, historical and contemporary, Runciman is the E. H. Carr or A. J. P. Taylor of our times--always engaged, always pushing, always a surprise. His is a genuinely transatlantic voice of sanity and hope, which should be heard on both sides of our shared pond. -- Corey Robin, City University of New York, author of "Fear: The History of a Political Idea" We have been waiting for a book on the world after 9/11 and the decision to go to war in Iraq, and this is it. David Runciman's The Politics of Good Intentions is a masterly analysis of the mix of moralizing illusion and economy with the truth that has infected politics since the terrorist attacks, and which took the U.S. and Britain into an unending war in Iraq. Rigorously reasoned and written with a spare elegance and grace, this will be the canonical book on Blair, Bush, and Iraq for some time to come. -- John Gray, London School of Economics, author of "Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern" and "Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals"