ANTHONY SAMPSON

Forty years ago Anthony Sampson wrote his indispensable best-seller The Anatomy of Britain. Now he has felt drawn back to the task by exasperation with the lack of democracy and accountability in Blair''s Britain. How has power become so concentrated in so few hands? Whatever happened to all those alternative centres -- like parliament, the monarchy, the regions or the cabinet? Why are company directors, lawyers or accountants so unanswerable to the people they represent? Sampson follows ''the will o'' the wisp of power'' through each profession vividly describing the new people at the top: corporate chiefs in place of hereditary landowners, Islington media couples in place of Kensington toffs. He finds still more power concentrating on Downing Street, which has never been more distant from parliament -- or closer to big business. After four decades of power-watching Sampson is now more impatient with the abuses. But he is hopeful that the British people will finally reassert their democratic rights, whether as voters or shareholders.This new Anatomy provides an insider''s tour, with exceptional sources; but it is on the side of the outsider, written for ordinary citizens who want to know who manipulates their lives -- and how to make them answer.

Widely considered to be the most important biography of Nelson Mandela, Antony Sampsons remarkable book has been updated with an afterword by acclaimed South African journalist, John Battersby.Long after his presidency of South Africa, Nelson Mandela remained an inspirational figure to millions both in his homeland and far beyond. He has been, without doubt, one of the most important figures in global history. His death, on 5 December 2013 at the age of 95, resonated around the world.Mandelas opposition to apartheid and his 27 year incarceration at the hands of South Africas all-white regime are familiar to most. In this utterly compelling book, eminent biographer Anthony Sampson draws on a fifty year-long relationship to reveal the man who rocked a continent and changed its future.With unprecedented access to the former South African president the letters he wrote in prison, his unpublished jail autobiography, extensive conversations, and interviews with hundreds of colleagues, friends, and family Sampson depicts the realities of Mandelas private and public life, and the tragic tension between them. Updated after Sampsons death with a new afterword by distinguished South African journalist John Battersby, this is the ultimate biography of one of the twentieth centurys greatest statesmen.